


beatrice

by QuidProCrow



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Detective Noir, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Investigations, Murder, Murder Mystery, in which some things are changed around but it all works out sort of how it's supposed to, the major character death isn't who you think it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 01:24:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuidProCrow/pseuds/QuidProCrow
Summary: Lemony Snicket investigates the apparent murder of a woman known only as Beatrice, and finds himself not only falling in love but into a wild, mysterious, and ultimately unfortunate series of events.





	beatrice

**Author's Note:**

> **IMPORTANT NOTE,** we're in weird noir shenanigan territory in this fanfic, where things happen that aren't always exactly what they seem. also, the major character death is the kind of major character death you'd expect in ASOUE/ATWQ, so I don't think there's anything in here that this fandom isn't already prepared for on a general note. bearing that in mind, let's get to it, folks 
> 
> **Also, MAJOR SPOILERS** for the ending of _Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?_. **We're talking SERIOUSLY MAJOR SPOILERS, I cannot stress that enough.**

There was a town, and there was a girl, and there was a crime, but it was a different town and a different girl and a different crime than before. It was the city, and it was a woman, and it was probably murder. I wasn't almost thirteen. I was somewhere in the muddle of self-doubt that most people call someone's early twenties. Most of all, I was hoping that this time, I wasn't wrong. 

I returned to the city early in the morning on the coldest day in January, after a long weekend in a faraway town I would prefer never to think about again, but it's always the things you never want to think about that you wind up thinking about. I went there at least once a year, to think through things I also tried and failed not to think about. I did a lot of thinking and not-thinking those days, but I very rarely, if ever, came up with any concrete answers. 

The taxi I took back into the city didn't usually travel that sort of distance, but the drivers didn't seem to mind. They hadn't just offered, they'd insisted. They looked back at me every now and then, but I didn't want to meet their gazes. I looked out the window instead, at the thick grey sky and faded brown buildings. I knew they wanted to talk, and I didn't want to. I didn't know if I could answer any of their questions. I tried to hide myself behind one of the books they kept in the back seat—the taxi also doubled as a mobile library—but my disguises have never been very successful, unless I was hiding in a mailbox or a piano. 

"You're awfully quiet today, Snicket," one of them said. 

"Hm," I said. 

"You are," said the one in the passenger seat, and he turned, looking at me. "You haven't even given us any tips this time." 

I thought it over. It felt like ages since I'd picked up a book with the honest intention of reading it through—I'd barely had the time lately, between doing what my organization wanted me to do and then doing what they didn't want me to do. I hadn't even read the book I was hiding behind. I looked down at it and finally caught sight of the title. "You should read the sequel," I said. "Some people say it's not as good as the first book, but I think it gives a deeper view of some of the characters and what they became." 

"Fair enough," the brother in the passenger seat said, and he turned back around. 

I looked out the window again. The brown buildings gave way to smaller, sturdier buildings and slightly more people. We were nearing the heart of the city. I tried not to be too nervous. I was always nervous when I came back to the city nowadays, because I didn't know what had happened in my absence, and I worried about what I would find. 

"Can you tell us what you were up to this time?" the driver asked. 

I thought that over too. I wasn't sure how to explain why I had been visiting a cemetery when I was supposed to be investigating a post office. I did, in fact, eventually investigate the post office, and sent along the required information to my sister, before I followed the lead further and wound up almost running into a Quagmire. I was still interfering, as headquarters liked to remind me in their letters that I found stuffed in refrigerated condiments whenever I returned to my apartment. _You think you'd learn,_ they said, which I thought was unnecessarily cruel, but typical of them. We have never seen eye to eye on many matters. 

Although I wasn't as determined as I had been in my youth, I still believed that we could do things differently. I still did them differently, to the exasperation and worry of my sister. I didn't know what good it would do, or if it would do any good at all, or if I was still very, very wrong, and would be, for the rest of my life, no matter what I tried to do or how I tried to do it, but I still tried. It was the only thing I could do. 

"The usual," I wound up saying. I smiled a little bit when the brothers laughed. 

After a few minutes I caught a glimpse of the payphone down the street. "This is my stop," I said, and the taxi pulled to a halt a few feet away from the booth. 

"Good luck with everything," the driver said, and when I finally caught his eye, he smiled. 

"Don't work too hard," his brother said with a grin. 

I raised a hand in farewell as I got out of the back seat. I watched Pip and Squeak Bellerophon drive away, and my eyes lingered on the corner where the taxi disappeared. Then I turned back to the phone booth, glanced briefly at my watch, and leaned back against a streetlamp to wait. 

The phone rang five minutes early, which was right on schedule, and I slid into the booth and picked up the receiver. "Hello."

" _L_ ," my sister said, and she sounded oddly subdued. I had only heard her that way once before, a long time ago at a funeral, and I was nervous to hear her that way again. " _There's been a change of plans._ "

I tightened my grip on the phone. "What's happened?"

" _An associate was killed yesterday._ " 

"Who?" It wasn't unusual to lose an associate, especially as we all got older, but I never liked when it happened. 

" _Do you remember Beatrice?_ "

I closed my eyes. 

I remembered Beatrice. 

We hadn't talked much after our apprenticeships started. But it was hard to forget someone you thought you loved, even at the age of eleven. I remembered the way her dark brown, almost black hair curled under her chin, the way she pushed it back behind her ears when she gave her oral report on the sonnet. I remembered the way she blinked at me when I told her arriving early was the mark of a noble person. I remembered the way she listened, like she was doing the most important thing in the world, and she never took her eyes off you. That was why I'd liked her. She listened, and she didn't patronize, and she believed. 

We would go to the diner around the corner from headquarters and order a truly outrageous amount of root beer floats. She'd laugh at things I said that I hadn't intended to be funny, but I never got the impression that she was laughing at me. Sometimes the Duchess of Winnipeg would come with us, and the two of them would try to disguise me the best they could with our organization's disguise kits. I'd help them rehearse their lines for their acting classes. I taught Beatrice to play cards, and Beatrice taught the Duchess of Winnipeg, who used her new skills to win my pen collection from me, and then Beatrice would smuggle them back to me between classes. 

I kissed Beatrice on the cheek once. She smiled at me and said "Mr. Snicket, you are one of a kind," and then ordered another root beer float. 

Sometimes we talked about growing up, about the things we'd do. We didn't have dreams, we had plans, and we were certain we could achieve them. Beatrice was quiet about it, but I thought sometimes that she was even more determined than I was. I ached a little bit to think about that now. 

We had been children then, and we hadn't spoken in years. I lost track of a lot of associates after my apprenticeship, and Beatrice had been one of them. In all honesty, I had tried to avoid her once I returned to the city. I didn't think I could face her. 

I knew Kit kept in contact with her, and that they spoke often. It explained why she was so upset. I wished I had words of consolation for my sister, but a sudden emptiness had formed in my chest. 

" _L_?"

I opened my eyes. I looked through the glass of the phone booth and out at the city. It seemed colder now. People continued walking by and I watched them and tried, not for the first time, to understand how they could just keep going, even when the world around them kept changing. "Yes," I said. "I remember her. How—?" 

_"Someone shot her. B and I—we've been trying to keep it quiet because—_ " She took in a deep breath. _"We think it was someone from our organization."_

"What?" 

_"I think,_ " Kit began, very slowly, as if she was trying to keep her voice from trembling, _"that O was one of the last people to see her."_

It was worrying to hear Kit talk about Olaf now, after the fairly loud and unfortunately public scene that had ended their relationship just a few weeks ago. Even if he was still considered a member of our organization, if he was the last one to see Beatrice, that meant a certain possibility that neither of us wanted to consider. "I see," I said. 

_"But I don't—I don't know. Something's going on in the organization. I need someone I trust investigating this. I need you to do it."_

It was nice that even after everything I'd done, and everything I'd done to Kit, that she still trusted me. But I didn't know if I was the right one to do it. Beatrice deserved someone with a less conflicted conscience investigating her murder. "Kit, I—" 

_"Please, L."_

I could count on one hand the number of times I'd heard Kit say 'please.' I thought about what it would mean to investigate, and my chest seized up at the thought. Talking to associates I'd been trying not to talk to. Having to make choices about whether something was right or wrong, and then doing it anyway. Everything I worried about, with even more significance than usual. 

But Kit asked very little of me, and I still remembered the last time I'd left her alone. 

I sighed. "I'll try." 

_"Thank you,_ " Kit said. 

"Where can I find him?" I asked.

_"There's a bar he likes. One of ours, actually. On Bayberry. It's two blocks up from your payphone. He might be there."_

"Alright."

_"You'll have to visit B, too. If O doesn't know anything, B might. Or R, even."_

"Can I ask," I began, "when you saw her last?" 

_"I saw her Saturday. We had lunch with R. We were supposed to hear from her on Sunday, but we didn't, so that night R and I went to her apartment. When we got there...._ " Her voice trailed off.

"Okay," I said. "Thanks." 

Kit was quiet for a moment, but quiet in a different way than before, and I felt my throat close up a little. I knew what she was going to ask. She asked every time, and like many other things, it never got easier to hear.

_"How was it?"_

I cleared my throat. It didn't help. "It was fine," I told her. "I'll talk to you later."

I hung up.

-

The bar on Bayberry Avenue wasn't a bar that I could say I frequented, but I had been in there at least once before, on an occasion where Kit and I had also been looking for Olaf. I didn't think this time would be as pleasant.

Our organization used the bar, like they did with other restaurants in the city, as a front for gathering information, so there was a good chance I wouldn't just run into Olaf, but any number of my associates. I wasn't eager to see any of them, but I had a feeling I was going to be seeing more of them now, so I nodded politely to a potted plant by the door that looked a little like one of the Denouement triplets. It rustled in return. 

Inside the small, narrow restaurant, the blinds on the front windows tilted to let in slivers of early morning sunlight that fell into long rectangles across the black and white tiled floor. The overstuffed grey booths by the right wall were empty, and only a few of the squat, round tables in the center of the room had occupants. Between the bar counter and the collection of bottles behind it on the left wall was the barkeep. I caught her eye. Olivia raised a thin eyebrow in my direction, but after a few moments, she smiled. 

I saw Olaf at a table in the back. Even this early in the morning, empty glasses surrounded him on the table, another half-full glass dangling in his hand. But he didn't look upset—if anything, he looked almost celebratory. 

Then Olaf turned and saw me, and his face broke into a wide sneer. 

I sighed. 

"Well, well, well!" Olaf leaned back in his chair and raised his glass in my direction. "Lemony Snicket! What sad rock did you crawl out from under?" 

I ignored that remark. "Olaf," I said, walking over and sitting down next to him. I thought about resting my hands on the table, but the amount of empty glasses on it seemed to suggest I think otherwise, so I just kept my hands in my lap. 

Olaf tilted his head back but still kept his eyes on me. "You've been out of touch with this crowd almost as much as I have, haven't you, Snicket?" 

I frowned at Olaf, and he just grinned back. 

"Up to more nefariously noble deeds, the ones that take you out of the city for those weeks at a time that has everyone else all up in arms about you and what you're doing?" He started to laugh, and it wheezed out of him in gleeful, hissing bursts. 

I have never liked Olaf, and it was moments like these that reminded me just why. I was already worried enough about my affairs, but Olaf tended to throw the things I'd done in my face with a kind of fascination. He found it entertaining to remind me how much this organization had fallen apart, carefully avoiding what it had done to him as much as me.

I used to tell myself that at least I would never be like Olaf, a man who walked a very thin line between 'socially acceptable' and 'morally reprehensible' like it was his job. I'd watched him grow up from an irritating child with questionable ideas into an even more irritating adult with even more questionable ideas. And then I thought about myself, and what I'd grown up into, and I felt like I was walking that line myself, and then falling off into an ocean of endless misery. 

I couldn't think about that now. I shook my head and decided to just dislike Olaf more. 

"I'm here about Beatrice," I said. 

Olaf stopped laughing and gasped dramatically, but I saw the mirth still gleaming in his eyes, and it scared me, a little, how much he seemed to be honestly enjoying an associate's death. "Oh, yes," he said, clutching at his chest. "Would that it were _me,_ Snicket! How awful this is! So _young,_ so _talented,_ and cut down in her _prime_ —why, I'll always remember, with all the fondness I can muster, which is, I'll have you know, a _considerable_ amount, the time she asked me for acting lessons...." 

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to tune out his fabricated story. It was usually Kit's voice I heard whenever I had to deal with Olaf, telling me _he doesn't mean it, not really, not all the time,_ but this time I heard a lighter voice in the back of my mind, one that said _he just likes getting under people's skin, doesn't he?,_ and I saw Beatrice, sitting across from me in a different restaurant, a diner, frowning as she played with the straw in her root beer float. 

I opened my eyes. "Kit said you were one of the last to see Beatrice," I said, trying to keep us both on the same page. 

At the mention of my sister, Olaf's fingers twitched against the side of the glass in his hand, but his expression didn't waver. "I was _the_ last, as a matter of fact," he said. "Beatrice and I went to lunch on Sunday. _She_ asked, by the way. I didn't make it a habit of hanging around her. I only said yes because she looked so desperate." 

"What did you talk about?"

Olaf shrugged. "Things," he said. 

"That's unhelpfully unspecific," I said.

"Well, so was she," Olaf said. "Trust me, you weren't missing anything good, except a woman being a real failure at the concept of guilt-tripping. You need leverage to do that, and she didn't have it." He took a large gulp of his drink. "She was trying to be _noble,_ but she came off as just plain irritating." 

I sighed hard. Olaf was being as obtuse as I imagined he'd be. "What else?" I asked, trying not to sound as irritated as I myself felt. 

Olaf hummed in thought. "She cried when she left, probably. Seems the type. Then I guess she went home? That's what I did. To my _own_ home, thanks." He looked back at me. "I didn't follow her back to her apartment and murder her, Snicket. I hated Beatrice, sure, but I didn't hate her _that_ much." 

I considered believing him, and I told myself firmly that, given his track record over even just the past few minutes, I shouldn't believe him. Myself told me that, realistically, I didn't have any evidence except Olaf's natural personality, and that wouldn't really hold up anywhere. I told myself fine, I'd just have to figure out how to get him to tell the truth. Myself wished me good luck with that. I agreed that I'd need something short of a miracle to have a logical conversation with Olaf. 

"Did she say anything else?" I asked. "Was she planning on meeting anyone else?"

Olaf took another sip of his drink. "Maybe. She had quite the rotating list of dinner dates. I wasn't the _only_ one she had her eye on, if you know what I mean." 

I knew what he wanted that to mean, and I knew what that actually meant, so I ignored it. "Did she look worried? Nervous?" 

"I don't know."

"You ate lunch with her," I said, raising an eyebrow. "You must have looked at her at some point."

"Maybe I did," Olaf said loftily. "And maybe she looked a little _scared_ , once or twice. I can't blame her. I just exude natural confidence, it's unsettling for others less sure of themselves." 

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Olaf rested his chin on his hand and looked off into the distance. I counted out three minutes in my head before he said, "She bought me a roast beef sandwich." 

I took in a deep breath and let it out a little faster than I had intended. Olaf did that to people. I stood up, pushing my chair back roughly. "Thank you for your time," I muttered. 

Olaf drained the rest of his drink and dropped the empty glass onto the table. After wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he said, "Hey. You're going to have to talk to Bertrand, aren't you?" 

I didn't want to tell Olaf more than I had to, but this seemed unavoidable. "Yes." 

"Can I come with you?"

I frowned. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?" I tried. I didn't want to spend longer with Olaf than was absolutely necessary. I was also, frankly, surprised that he'd even want to join me, considering I didn't think he really liked me, or even liked Bertrand. I didn't think he truly liked anyone, although that was up for debate.

"Nope," Olaf said cheerfully. 

"Why would you even want to?"

Olaf merely grinned again, and I tried not to shiver at the sight of it. "I think it'd be fun to watch. _This breaks his noble heart,_ isn't that how it goes?" 

That was not, in fact, how it went, in any story. I wanted to get rid of him. But he looked like he wasn't going anywhere else anytime soon, and there was probably no man alive more dangerously volatile than Olaf. 

"Fine," I said. 

Olaf stood up. "Oh, hey. You haven't seen Esmé, have you?"

"No," I said, not even bothering to point out that of course I hadn't seen her because I'd spent my first hour back in the city in his own pleasant company. 

"Oh, well." Olaf shrugged. "She can find me later." Then he looked down at the table. "You're paying, right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and looking back and forth between me and the empty glasses littering the table. 

I sighed, rummaged around in my pockets, and slammed the money down on the table. 

Olaf's grin pulled to show all of his teeth. "Thanks, Snicket."

-

It is difficult to comfort the bereaved. Although you may try very hard not to say the wrong thing, you will invariably wind up doing it at some point, not through any insensitivity of your own, or over-sensitivity on behalf of the grieving, but because words are powerful, and memories are jogged at even the smallest, most seemingly inconsequential phrase. It is therefore necessary to bring with you a great deal of sympathy and an equal amount of patience and tissues. I didn't have the tissues, but I had the sympathy and patience.

Contrary to popular belief, I happened to enjoy Bertrand's company. He was the sort of person who was quietly kind, who seemed to make a room safer just by walking into it. The only thing we ever disagreed on was on the skill level of our chaperone, whom we had decided to just never speak of again. 

Bertrand welcomed me into his apartment with a small, if strained, smile, and even did the same for Olaf, who sauntered in behind me and looked around the apartment with a critical eye. The sitting room was small but had comfortable couches, and I admired the wall-to-wall bookshelves. Despite Bertrand's grief, obvious in his shaking hands and the way he sometimes looked momentarily lost, running his hand through his short brown hair and frowning deeply, he still insisted on making us tea. He set the tray down on the coffee table and sat down next to me.

Bertrand smiled that tight smile again. "Kit told me you might be coming," he said. "Thank you."

"Don't you have any sugar?" Olaf asked, and he even looked under one of the light blue couch cushions to check. 

Bertrand and I looked at Olaf, and then back to each other. "What can you tell me about Beatrice?" I asked. "When did you see her last?" I wished I had a better way to ask that, but I didn't. 

"Sunday afternoon," Bertrand said. "I went—what?" He paused, because Olaf had sat up suddenly. "What is it?"

" _I_ was the last one to see Beatrice," Olaf said, raising an eyebrow. "She took _me_ to lunch." 

"Well, _after_ you went to lunch," Bertrand said, "I went over to her apartment to rehearse."

"Oh, sure, to _rehearse,_ " Olaf snickered. He leaned back against the couch. 

Bertrand glared at him. "That's what it was," he insisted. 

"What were you rehearsing?" I asked. 

"Beatrice and I are in an upcoming play for our organization," Bertrand explained, still staring at Olaf, who was now poking the green couch pillows. "She likes—she _liked_ going over the script as thoroughly as possible so that there weren't any mistakes." That made sense, as our plays were rarely just straightforward plays, and often included coded messages to our associates. "We went over it for a few hours and then I—I left. I came back here. I didn't hear from her after that." His voice cracked a little, and was almost a whisper by the end.

"Were you supposed to hear from her?"

Bertrand cleared his throat. "We had unconfirmed dinner plans," he said quietly. 

I had a feeling what that meant, and I thought it would be kinder to not press it. Olaf, however, apparently didn't feel the same. 

"I told you," he said, looking at me, "that I wasn't the only one she had her eye on."

"Beatrice wasn't that kind of person," Bertrand said quickly. "I'm sure she only went to lunch with you because she had a reason to."

Olaf grinned. "Did she tell you what we talked about?"

Bertrand blinked a few times. He swallowed, and then he took in a slow breath. "No," he said. "She didn't get the chance to." 

Olaf rolled his eyes and pushed himself up off the couch. He walked leisurely around the room, peering into flower vases and music boxes and upending the occasional chess set. Bertrand frowned, his eyes carefully following Olaf. 

"When you saw her," I asked, "did it seem like anything was wrong? Did she do or say anything specific?"

"She looked a little worried," Bertrand admitted, "but when I asked she said—" He paused, twisting his hands together in his lap. "She said it was nothing." 

"Don't you have any Edgar Guest?" Olaf asked loudly, now pulling books out of the shelves haphazardly and flipping through them.

"No," Bertrand said, watching him with a disdainful look. "I find his poetry a little overly-sentimental, actually."

"So do I," I said. 

"Well, there's no accounting for taste, I guess," Olaf muttered. 

"Did you know anything she was working on?" I asked Bertrand. "Anything that might have put her in the path of someone that didn't like her?"

Bertrand shook his head. "Beatrice was careful about who she told things, even if they were close to her. I got the impression, however, that she saw Esmé quite frequently." 

I knew very little about Esmé, but I knew enough to know that Beatrice probably hadn't been making social calls. "Can you think of any reason why?" 

There was a crash in the corner of the room, and Bertrand and I both turned to see Olaf frozen by the window, a pile of books and an accompanying table knocked over at his feet. 

"Is there something I can help you with?" Bertrand said loudly, looking incredulously at Olaf. 

Olaf shrugged. "I'm just doing Snicket's job for him," he said. Then he stepped over the books and walked to the mantle, looking behind the photographs on it. 

I sighed. I felt like a parent trying to keep track of a rambunctious child in a store full of breakable objects while I was trying to buy the most fragile one. Although Bertrand didn't have that much concrete information, he was still being more helpful than Olaf, and I wanted to listen to him. 

Bertrand's gaze flicked between us. "If there's something you want to look through, you can just ask."

"He's too polite for that," Olaf said.

"On the contrary," I said, "I don't think Bertrand is hiding anything in this apartment." Honestly, I didn't. I have never known Bertrand to lie like Olaf, or to be the kind of person who kept more secrets than the usual amount one keeps. "But I would like to see Beatrice's."

-

Bertrand unlocked the door to Beatrice's apartment, and the three of us stepped inside.

Beatrice had done her apartment in shades of cream with red accents, although that didn't account for the red stain in the carpet by the door. I tried to ignore the feeling in my stomach and instead thought about how it must've happened. Someone came to the door. Beatrice opened the door. Someone shot Beatrice. Someone left. Kit and the Duchess of Winnipeg showed up, found Beatrice, and—what? Called it into headquarters. The higher ups must've moved the body. The police weren't involved, because the police are never involved, and they just would've complicated things. 

I stared down at the stain on the floor. For being the remains of a murder, it wasn't very big. I told myself that she must not have been there for long. 

I looked back up at Bertrand and Olaf. Bertrand was staring around the apartment, pale and lost again. Olaf, thankfully, hadn't started tearing through the place like he had with Bertrand's, but he looked at everything carefully, as if sizing it up. I wondered if he really did think he was doing my job for me. 

The main room was long but not narrow, with a piano in one corner and the customary bookshelves settled on either side of the window on the far wall. There were two doors, one I assumed went to the kitchen, and the other to Beatrice's bedroom, the latter I hoped I wouldn't have to go into. Towards the middle of the room, a series of chairs sat around the grey and empty fireplace, and near the chairs, a white desk, piled with immaculately organized groups of papers.

The more I looked, the more I saw the small touches of Beatrice—the Neruda books on the shelves, the curl of her handwriting across the papers on her desk, the complete tea set sitting on the coffee table. An unfinished cross stitch of what looked like part of a message resting on a couch cushion, the picture of her and my sister and the Duchess of Winnipeg on the mantle, Sunday's newspaper folded up by the tea set. A slice of strawberry cake in the fridge. A Tito Puente record still in the record player. A new unwrapped box of tea on the kitchen counter. This is all that's left of her, Snicket, I told myself, and you did nothing about it. 

Then I saw it. Hanging on the wall above the fireplace was a portrait, delicately painted, of Beatrice. 

It wasn't as if I had been imagining that a twelve year old Beatrice had been killed, but that had been the last time I'd seen her, so somewhere, that was still the image of her in my head. When I looked at the portrait, I realized just how many years had gone by. She'd gotten taller, and her hair had grown longer, and her smile had turned sharper. She wore a purple sundress, and she stared out at the room with deep brown eyes that seemed to survey everything. I was struck suddenly by how much I had missed, and I felt like Beatrice was silently chiding me for it. It was a dreadful feeling. 

I could hear her as if she was standing right behind me. _I heard your apprenticeship starts soon._

It does, I had told her.

 _I also heard you picked Markson,_ she said, the smile clear in her voice. _What are you getting into, Mr. Snicket?_

Nothing much, I had lied, because I hadn't known, and it was a question we often asked each other. 

She laughed. _You'll need this._ She handed me her tape measure, the one shaped like a small bat. _Take good care of it, okay?_

I never saw it again. I never saw Beatrice again. 

Bertrand's voice brought me back to the apartment. "Are you looking for anything in particular?" he asked. 

I pulled myself away from the portrait and looked at Bertrand. "Anything that might tell me what happened," I said, "or who might have wanted her dead." I moved through the room, stopping by the desk again and rifling through the papers. There were letters from a few of our associates, but none that I would consider enemies, and nothing from anyone I didn't recognize. 

"A lot of people probably want most of us dead," Bertrand said, a little numbly. He stared at me as I looked through Beatrice's desk. "Those were Beatrice's letters—she wouldn't have wanted you looking through them—"

"I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it. "I have to."

"But—" 

"Something you don't want Snicket to see, Bertrand?" Olaf asked, and he emerged from the kitchen, which I hadn't even seen him enter, eating the slice of cake from the fridge. 

Bertrand paled. "I—no, that's not it, it's just—"

"Afraid he'll find out something?" Olaf continued, a taunting smile on his face, and I had a bad feeling about what he was going to say next. "Like what happened when you told Beatrice you loved her? Because if I remember correctly, she didn't exactly return your sentiments, did she?" He took another bite of cake, his teeth scraping against the fork. 

If there was even any color left in Bertrand's face from before, there certainly wasn't any now. He seemed to sway on the spot, and he grabbed the back of a nearby cream-colored chair for support. "I—" 

"We all knew she didn't like you, that she was just being polite," Olaf said, waving the fork around. "Come on. What'd she say, when you told her?" 

"That's none of your business," Bertrand said, his voice trembling. "You don't—it's not—" 

"Oh really? Because Beatrice is _dead,_ Bertrand," Olaf said, and the smile on his face twisted in a way I am fearful of describing fully. "And I think that makes you a little suspicious, don't you think?"

I looked at Bertrand, whose face was doing a very admirable job of staying carefully blank even as his eyes watered. "I—" he began, very shakily. "I can't be here." He walked quickly to the door. "I'll be in the hall."

Olaf snickered and jammed the rest of the cake in his mouth as the door shut behind Bertrand. "I'm so glad I came," he said, a little muffled from the cake. 

I glared at Olaf. "I think you should leave," I said quietly. It seemed now that the drawbacks of Olaf being here outweighed the benefits of making sure he didn't do anything else. If all he was going to do anyway was insult Bertrand and me and then eat a dead woman's cake, I didn't think I had to watch him anymore. 

"But then who would tell you how to do your job, Snicket?" he said, his voice light, his eyes dancing. 

"I think you should leave," I repeated.

Olaf held my gaze for a long moment, still grinning, before he laughed again, dropped the plate and fork on top of the piano, and walked out. I heard his cheerful good-bye to Bertrand, and I pretended not to hear the answering sob.

I took the plate and fork back to the kitchen and washed them off. I put them back in their proper places in the cabinets with a little more force than was necessary. Hate is a very strong word, but sometimes it is the only word to describe how you feel about someone so vile and terrible, and in that moment, I hated Olaf more than I'd ever done before. 

I stayed in the apartment a little longer, looking through the records, the cabinets, even inside the piano. There was nothing that gave any indication as to what Beatrice had been up to, who could've entered, or why they would've wanted her dead. Also, I felt uncomfortable being there with Bertrand just outside the door. With a sigh, I gave it up for the moment as a lost cause and went back into the hallway.

Bertrand, who had been leaning against the wall, jumped when I closed the door. His eyes were red. "What did you find?" he asked. 

"Nothing so far," I said, shaking my head. 

Bertrand closed his eyes. "I see." 

I wished I had some words of consolation for Bertrand, since I still didn't have any tissues. But I still didn't know what to say, and I worried that anything I could say would just make it worse. 

"I didn't kill her," Bertrand whispered. 

"I didn't think you did," I said.

We stood in silence. Then Bertrand opened his eyes and dug through his pockets before he pulled out a small object. "Here," he said, and he handed me the key he'd used to unlock the door. "You'll probably need it. I don't think....well, I won't have much use for it now." He pressed his lips together tightly. 

Something cold settled inside me at Bertrand's words. It is difficult to lose the people closest to you, particularly when you are not expecting it. It's like having a good book taken from you before you had the chance to finish it, and then the book was burned, and you realized with a slow, sinking feeling that you would never be able to find out how it ends. You can imagine, but you will never know for sure. A numbing grief settles in your chest in the space created by this loss, one that seems to cause as much pain as it causes you emptiness. I had cared for Beatrice, in my own way, but Bertrand had loved her, and it wasn't until that moment that I truly understood that space that had formed in our lives or what it meant. 

I cleared my throat more than was necessary. "Thank you," I managed. 

Bertrand smiled, or he tried to smile, or his face did something that was less of a smile and more of a sincere attempt to pull himself together. He sighed, and then he walked off down the hall, turned the corner, and disappeared. 

I stood in the hallway for a long time, looking down at the key in my hand. 

Later, I returned to my own apartment alone. It was about the same as I had left it—relatively clean except for the layer of dust starting to settle over the furniture and the papers I had pinned to the walls. My typewriter still sat in the corner. All my books were still there. Kit had restocked the refrigerator. I checked the condiment jars but found nothing important. I sat down and poured myself a drink but didn't taste it. I rolled the glass in my hands instead and watched the darkness settle outside through the lone window in my living room. 

It wasn't the first night I had cried myself to sleep. But it was the first night that it was because of Beatrice. 

I had a feeling it wouldn't be the last.

-

I spent the next morning questioning the landlord of Beatrice's apartment building and the other residents of her floor. They recalled nothing out of the ordinary that night, because they weren't trained for that sort of thing, but one of them placed the gunshot at ten-thirty that night.

"Did you call the police?" I asked, hoping they hadn't. 

They shrugged. "A gunshot's not unusual around here," they said. 

Afterwards, I returned to her apartment to search it properly, now that I didn't have Olaf and Bertrand with me. The room was exactly the same. Same cream carpet, same red and white furnishings, same thick curtains, same stain. My eyes lingered on Beatrice's portrait above the fireplace for a moment, and then I went to the desk and sat down.

On the left side was a thick collection of papers, bound by a smooth white cover with typewritten words on the front. I flipped through it briefly. It was the rehearsal script, with a few of the props underlined but otherwise nothing that stood out about it. I set it back down.

Now that I could peruse her letters without interruption, I found that there was a little more information there than I'd assumed. There were quite a few letters from Bertrand, letters that I was a little embarrassed to read. I read them anyway, and only confirmed that Bertrand had been in love, but certainly in a way that didn't suggest he'd go so far as to murder Beatrice for spurning him, if she'd even done that anyway. I wondered what Beatrice had written back to him, and then I told myself, very firmly, that it didn't matter.

In one of the desk drawers, which I had a great deal of trouble opening with a nearby pen, considering my lock-picking skills hadn't gotten better over the years, I found a letter from Monty, where he'd written her in the Sebald Code about the location of the Virginian Wolfsnake. There were other letters from the Duchess of Winnipeg, written after the previous Duchess of Winnipeg died. There were notes from Josephine and my sister, locations of meeting places or drop offs, and I even found a note from Olivia, partially burned, outlining the details of something that had involved our Volunteer Feline Detectives. If they told me anything, it was that Beatrice had been at the center of a good number of fragmentary plots. 

A notebook, bound on the side with a lock, rested in the center drawer. I bit my lip and steeled myself. I still felt sick breaking the diary open, but I did it. I had to know from her what had happened the day she'd died, and the only way to do that was to read it. I flipped through to the last entry.

_January 8th_

_Today I asked Olaf to lunch, to talk about what I'd overheard at the Veritable French Diner yesterday afternoon. He looked surprised, but when I told him I'd pay, he agreed. What a charmer._

_I tried to tell him he didn't have to do it, but he told me—in no uncertain terms, either—that he was going through with it anyway. I tried to appeal to his sense of nobility—or at least morality—although I am finding that the terms are somewhat similar—but he laughed at me and told me he wasn't the only one planning things like he was. I didn't fall for the bait, though. The evidence I had was against him, and that was what I wanted to talk about._

_When I told him Kit would be so disappointed in him, he suddenly stopped laughing. His face became hard and cold, and he looked every bit the villain everyone believes he is. He told me that if I ever mentioned Kit's name again that he'd—well, it was a gruesome threat, to put it mildly. I left the restaurant shaking._

_I'll have to tell Bertrand and Kit and Ramona, so we can figure out where to go from here. I don't think Kit will like it._

_I feel so sorry for her—I know how much she cared about Olaf. I was starting to believe he cared about her, too. It can't have been easy for them—Esmé certainly didn't make it easy, I know that. I'll never forget the first time Kit told me about Esmé, since she'd become an apprentice after us and I didn't know her very well yet. "She's subtle about everything but her clothes," Kit said. From what I've seen of Esmé from interacting with her, and especially from following her the past few weeks, I have to agree._

_Whatever happens, I've hidden it in my bedroom. It feels silly to say it, but I don't think I've ever been so frightened or worried in my whole life._

I leaned back in the chair. It had cleared up a few things, but now I had more questions. What did Beatrice have against Olaf, and had she managed to tell anyone else? Why was she following Esmé, and what did she find out? What had she hidden in her bedroom? I had never known Beatrice to be anything but in control of every situation she was in—what scared her? 

Had Olaf gone through with his threat anyway? I didn't put it past Olaf to lie to me about what he'd done on Sunday. He could easily have followed Beatrice back to her apartment and then waited until Bertrand left. But by the time Beatrice wrote the entry, she hadn't seen Bertrand. How much time had passed between that entry, Bertrand's arrival and departure, and her death at 10:30? What had prevented her from putting it in? 

"Lemony?" 

I looked up and saw a woman frozen in the doorway, her eyes wide, her hand still on the doorknob. I hadn't seen her in quite some time, but I immediately recognized the tight curls of black hair and the distinctly Winnipeg facial structure. 

"I didn't know you were in the city, R," I said. I was always uncomfortable using initials with my associates, but with the Duchess of Winnipeg, I never felt that comfortable calling her _Ramona_ , no matter how many times she'd insisted over the years. 

"I didn't know you were here either," Ramona said, a little breathlessly. She closed the door behind her and walked slowly toward me, taking off her coat. Then I saw her eyes fall on the diary in my hands, the letters open on the desk in front of me, and the sparse color in her cheeks drained away. "You're investigating it, then." 

"Yes."

"I'm glad it's you," Ramona said, smiling sadly. "I'm so glad to see you, Lemony." 

I stood up in time to hug Ramona back as her arms tightened around my chest. Although I hadn't avoided Ramona, like I had avoided Beatrice, I still hadn't made it a point to interact with her, which I regretted now. It was nice to see her. 

Ramona pulled back, sniffling. "I saw the light on from the street, and I thought maybe Bertrand was up here, but I—it's you, it's really you." She laughed a little and wiped at her eyes. "Have you found anything yet? Anything at all?"

"A few things," I said, looking down at the diary. "Do you know why Beatrice was tailing Esmé? Bertrand said she didn't tell anyone what she was doing, but did you maybe—"

"Beatrice didn't tell a lot of people a lot of things," Ramona said, shaking her head. "She was always very quiet about what she did, because she was careful, and she liked to cover her tracks. But she told me and Kit some things. She told us a little about Esmé." 

"Like what?"

"Well, she said she was doing it on our organization's orders. Headquarters was suspicious of Esmé, which is not surprising at all, knowing Esmé. Oh, and then Kit told us she was following Olaf. Not on any orders or anything, she was just following him. She told us that at lunch the day before—" Ramona closed her eyes and took in a long breath. "Before." 

"What happened on Saturday?" 

She sighed. "Well, like I said, Kit and I had lunch with Beatrice. Then Beatrice left to go follow Esmé again. She said it looked like Esmé was going to meet Olaf." 

"Where did my sister go?"

"What?" 

"If Beatrice thought Esmé was meeting with Olaf," I said, "shouldn't Kit have gone with her, if _she_ was following Olaf?"

"Oh, that's right!" Ramona said. "She meant to, they even meant to leave together, but outside the restaurant we ran into Dewey and he and Kit went somewhere, and then Beatrice—she went wherever Esmé was. I—she was supposed to tell me that night. She was supposed to check in, but she didn't, but I—I didn't think it was too unusual, she often got wrapped up in things to the point where she didn't communicate for a while." She swallowed and looked down, twisting her fingers together. "But when Kit and I didn't see her at all the next day, we got worried, and we went to her apartment that night to make sure she was—make sure she was okay. And, well." Ramona gave a watery chuckle. "She wasn't, was she," she whispered. 

"She had lunch with Olaf on Sunday," I said. "Can you think of any reason why?"

Ramona frowned. "If Beatrice voluntarily went somewhere with him, she must have had a reason."

"I want you to read this." I held out the diary. 

Ramona took it. I watched her eyes move quickly down the page. "So Esmé _was_ with Olaf on Saturday!" she said after finishing the entry. "Beatrice must've overheard whatever they talked about. It sounds like she found out something dangerous. Olaf brags a lot, about a lot of things, he might have said something he didn't intend to and she overheard him."

"What could he have worried about her overhearing?" 

"Well, even if he talks a lot, he can be kind of vague about it, can't he?" Ramona said, handing me back the diary. "You ask him one question and he winds up making it about his acting career or roast beef."

I nodded. I knew that all too well. 

"I know he's up to something—when isn't he, really—but I don't know what. It sure sounds like something horrible, though, for him to threaten her. Kit might know." 

I'd have to find Kit and ask her about that later. Now, I had another question to ask Ramona. It was something I hadn't asked Bertrand, considering he hadn't had the view of Beatrice's apartment that Ramona had. "When you and Kit got there, did you see anyone else? In the hallway, or outside, or even in the apartment? Anyone at all?" 

Ramona bit her lip. "....I thought I saw Bertrand outside," she said slowly. "It looked like he was walking away from the building when Kit and I got there. But—but I couldn't tell for sure if it was him, Lemony, it was dark and his back was turned, it could've been anyone."

It was puzzling to think of why Bertrand would've still been at Beatrice's apartment, but I didn't think it was him, or that he'd be the type to lie to me about what had happened that night. I closed the diary and set it back down on the desk. I thought about what Bertrand had said the day before. _A lot of people probably want most of us dead._ I said it to Ramona. 

"Probably." Ramona smiled grimly. "And there's even more who would actually go through with it if they thought one of us was enough of a threat." 

I looked up at the portrait of Beatrice. We all knew, somewhere, the risks involved in what we did. We all knew what could happen to us, what had happened to some of us even before this. But it was still hard to think about it sometimes, that there were things at work in the world so opposed to us that they'd go as far as to remove an associate completely. I stared at the portrait, and the longer I stared the worse I felt, but I didn't look away. 

Ramona followed my gaze and her smile turned soft. "I painted that for her," she said quietly. "Last summer. She—she kept complaining that she had to sit still for so long." Her smile wobbled dangerously. "She was always doing something, always out somewhere, always meeting people or watching them. She doesn't—she didn't like to be alone. She kept to herself sometimes, but she didn't like to be alone." 

She sounded like she was going to cry, and I didn't like it. I had only seen Ramona cry once, and it was an experience I didn't want to relive. Something about Ramona crying always made me want to cry, because it just didn't seem like Ramona, headstrong and stubborn Ramona, the Ramona who teased everyone and had a laugh brighter than the sun, should ever have to cry. I tried to change the subject gently. "I didn't know you painted, R." 

Ramona cleared her throat. "I am a woman of _many_ talents, Lemony Snicket," she said, managing a smile and something like her usual lofty voice. "Stick around and you'll find that out." 

I smiled.

"Aha!" Ramona exclaimed. "How long has it been since I've seen you smile? It looks good on you, Lemony. You know, we should really get together. We can play cards again, like we used to!"

My smile faltered. I liked seeing Ramona, but I hadn't expected her to say that. I didn't know if I was capable of doing that, of spending any more time than I had to with my associates. "Or I could just give you all my pens right now and save us the trouble," I said. 

Ramona just shook her head. "Come _on_ , Lemony," she said, still smiling. "You never talk to me anymore. Or anyone!"

"I'm not very good company," I said. 

Her smile turned a little sad again. "Doesn't Kit ever tell you that you think too much?" 

I turned away from her and studied the carpet, as if that would make me feel less embarrassed. "Sometimes," I muttered. 

"Well, you really do," Ramona said, and then she put her coat on. "There's not a lot of us left, Lemony." Her eyes darted back to the portrait and then to me. "We should stick together."

I shrugged awkwardly. I knew Ramona had a point, but I still couldn't bring myself to agree with her. It would just cause her more trouble than she needed. 

Ramona's sigh sounded faintly exasperated, but she didn't press it anymore. "Are you at least going to come to the play next week?" she asked instead, buttoning her coat. 

"The play? Oh, right." I remembered the script on the desk and what Bertrand had said yesterday. 

"It's been a bit of an afterthought for everyone the past few days," Ramona said. "We haven't rehearsed since Saturday. We're planning one for tomorrow, though." Her smile was thin now. "We've got some casting problems to work out now." 

"You're still going to do it?" 

Ramona held her head high even as her mouth trembled. "The show must go on, Lemony Snicket," she said. "I mean—I don't think it'll be the same without her. But we have to do it. She would've wanted us to do it. We have information to give out. I guess you know Bertrand's in it, but even Olaf is. Even if he never shows up to rehearsal on time." She rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I don't know why he's still in it. The information we give out is usually about his _friends,_ if you can even call them that." 

I frowned. "He doesn't notice what you're saying?" 

"The messages aren't in the script, they're in the actions," Ramona explained. "We pick up different props for different plans. Beatrice came up with that. In case the script is changed or compromised, or we get new information too quickly to change the script, we can still convey what we need to with the props." 

"That's clever," I said with a smile. 

"Very clever," Ramona agreed. Then her expression turned serious. "About the play—there's something I think you should look into—"

The door slammed open and cut her off. Ramona and I turned to see Olaf, Bertrand, and Kit entering the apartment, already in the middle of a conversation. 

"I don't see _why_ you had to come with us," Bertrand was saying, striding into the room as if determined to get away from Olaf, who was close behind him. "I don't even know why you want to!"

"He just likes to know everything that's going on," Kit said irritably. 

Olaf gaped at them, affronted. "So do you two!" 

"What's going on here?" Ramona asked, looking between everyone. 

"I'd like to know that myself," I said. I didn't mind seeing Bertrand, and I was happy to see my sister, but the fact that Olaf was with them made me uneasy. 

"At least Bertrand and I have a reason to be here!" Kit said, slamming the door behind her. "You didn't care about Beatrice!" 

"Alright, you've got me there," Olaf conceded, crossing his arms over his chest and surveying my sister. "But I think you all are a little too close to home here. You've got all these _emotions_ getting in the way of figuring out what happened. I think I, as a somewhat impartial third party, should take over!" 

"You'd never get anything done!" Bertrand exclaimed. 

Olaf gasped dramatically, like he'd done yesterday. "What lack of confidence! I'm sure I could uncover anything Snicket could, and probably even more!" 

"Which brings us to why we're here in the first place." Bertrand turned to me. "Have you found out anything new since yesterday, Snicket?" 

Ramona and I looked at each other. It would've been different if Olaf hadn't been there—we could easily have discussed Beatrice's diary entry with Kit and Bertrand. But with Olaf in the room, I was wary to say anything too important. We came to a decision. 

"Nope," I said. 

"Not a thing," Ramona said. 

"There," Kit said, whirling around and facing Olaf, while Bertrand sighed next to them, all the fight seeming to drain out of him. "There's nothing to find. Are you happy? You can stop playing this stupid game of yours and leave!" 

"Game?" Olaf asked innocently. "And what would that be, Kit?" 

"Where you bother people and talk in circles until you get them to do what you want just so you'll leave them alone!" 

"You didn't think it was so stupid when we were kids, Kit," Olaf said, suddenly leering at her in a way that made me nervous. "You thought it was _clever_." 

"I've grown up, thanks," Kit replied shortly. " _Get out._ "

"Mm, no," Olaf said. "I don't think I will." He threw himself down into one of the armchairs, crossing his legs and twisting his head to look about the room. "You know, Beatrice had a lot of nice stuff. What's going to happen to it?"

I frowned at Olaf. There was something he was looking for, something he didn't want anyone else to know about. I remembered what Beatrice had written. _Whatever happens, I've hidden it in my bedroom._

"I don't know," Bertrand said, and this time he glanced at Ramona. 

I remembered that almost all of the Winnipeg line had been involved in our organization in some way or another, and that Ramona would most likely be the one to know what would happen to an associate's personal possessions after their death, considering what had happened to her mother. 

Ramona blinked rapidly. "Oh, well—our organization will most likely repossess it? It's not like she had a will or anything, I don't think." 

"Great!" Olaf said. The expressions on everyone's faces, including my own, tried to tell him that that was not great, but Olaf had never been one to listen or read the atmosphere. "So we can just take stuff, right?" He picked up one of the nearby flower vases and brought it up to his eye, staring inside it, just as he'd done before at Bertrand's. 

"Put that down, Olaf," I said.

He turned, looking at me now, and smiled a tight smile. "Beatrice had something of mine," he said. "Or something of Esmé's. Either way, you know. Now I'd like it back." 

"I didn't know you were Esmé's personal assistant now," Kit muttered. 

Ramona, Bertrand, and I all looked at each other with varying degrees of worry. I had the feeling it was Kit and Olaf's first time in a room with each other since the fight that had ended their relationship. It certainly explained the way they were going at each other. I didn't know whether or not I should stop them or let them continue—I had a feeling they might have continued even if I did try to stop them, anyway. Relationship problems tend to unintentionally override the importance of everything else, even a murder investigation. 

"Well, you wouldn't, would you?" Olaf shot back, dropping the vase back down onto the table. 

Kit raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"You're pretty bad at following people, Kit. Did you think I didn't notice you, trailing behind me lately?" He stared straight at her. "Still don't trust me, do you?"

My sister looked desperate for a split second. "That's—" Kit began, but then she stopped, as if realizing they weren't alone. She schooled her expression back into something reminiscent of the way I usually saw her, calm and collected. She probably fooled everyone else in the room, but I saw the way her shoulders tensed. "Of course I don't," she said, now glaring down at Olaf. "Not with the people you associate with."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we associate with the same people?" Olaf gestured to the room. "Aren't we all _associating_ right now?" 

"Don't be so literal," Kit snapped. "At least the people _I_ started associating with were better than Esmé!" 

" _Oh_ , so it's alright for you to see new people and get away with it, but not me?" 

"Dewey does not regularly engage in suspicious activity," Kit said, struggling to keep her voice level. 

"And Esmé does?" Olaf asked, his eyebrow raising. 

"You can't _honestly_ think she doesn't."

"See, this is your problem, Kit," Olaf said, and he pushed himself up out of his chair with a force that moved it back at least an inch. "This has always been your problem! If something or someone doesn't fit into your narrow view of the world, you immediately suspect it!" 

"Go on, then," Kit said. She still stood her ground, with her jaw clenched and her arms crossed tight over her chest. "Prove me wrong, Olaf. When was the last time you saw Esmé, and what was she doing?"

For a moment, it was as if something had broken open in Olaf's face, a realization of something he hadn't considered. His eyes went wide. 

I suddenly had a thought. It was a wild thought. Realistically, it made no sense. But also realistically, reality is sometimes fairly unpredictable. Life tends to be a little absurd at the worst of times. It was improbable. It couldn't be. But for a second, for that single second, it was a thought that made a little bit of sense. 

But then the moment was over, and Olaf was grinning again, a twisted grimace. He walked slowly over to my sister until he was too close to her. "That is none of your damn business," he hissed. 

A heavy silence hung in the room. Kit glared back at Olaf and looked like she could tear the world apart. Ramona looked like she wanted to hug Kit and punch Olaf at the same time. Bertrand, still in the corner, looked concerned. And Beatrice's portrait, hanging on the wall, looked down at all of us. 

I figured now was a good time to speak up. "I think," I said, "that we should all leave. If I find anything else, I'll let you all know." 

That seemed to bring everyone back to the gravity of the situation. Bertrand cleared his throat and left the room first, nodding at me as he left. Ramona waved a little as she approached the door, and I waved back. Olaf stared at Kit for a moment longer before he too walked out. The second the door shut behind him, Kit sighed, her shoulders sagging. She sat down in the chair Olaf had just vacated, let out an impatient noise when she realized what chair it was, and sat down on the couch instead. 

I walked over and sat down next to her. "Are you alright?" I asked.

"Am I _alright_ ," Kit repeated, smiling hollowly. "I don't know. I guess I don't know anything." 

The more I lived in this world, the more I was miserably certain that I was not the only Snicket sibling plagued by a sense of horrifying doubt. But it was still strange, almost frightening, to hear my sister so uncertain. 

Kit sighed again, more rushed than before, as if she was trying to shake herself out of her previous conversation. She turned to me. "You look tired," she said. 

I shrugged. "So do you."

"Don't sass your sister," Kit said, but the corner of her mouth pulled up a little bit. "Did you really not find anything new yet? Anything at all?" 

I thought about the diary. "Beatrice had lunch with Olaf on Sunday," I said. "It sounded like she had something against him and was trying to talk him out of it. She hid whatever that was here, in her apartment."

Kit looked around the room. "That must be why Olaf wanted to know what would happen to her things. And Beatrice could've hidden it anywhere, with all the different ways to hide information. You don't know what it is?"

"No." 

She stood up and walked around slowly, running her fingers over the mantle, the tables, the unfinished cross stitch. "Have you looked everywhere?"

I cleared my throat and glanced briefly in the direction of the bedroom door. "I have it on good authority that it's probably in there," I said, "but I—"

Kit almost laughed. "My brother, the gentleman," she said, and she crossed to the other side of the room and pushed open the door to the only room I hadn't entered. 

I remained in the sitting room while Kit searched the bedroom. I heard her opening drawers, flipping through books, removing box lids, switching lamps on and off, running her hands over the carpet, and properly picking locks before snapping them shut again. Meanwhile, I tried not to look at the portrait on the wall, irrationally afraid that I would find Beatrice's painted eyes upon me. 

A few minutes later, Kit emerged from the bedroom and sat back down next to me, pushing her hair behind her ears. "Well, whatever it is," she said, "Beatrice hid it well. I didn't find anything suspicious." 

I sighed. Then I realized I had to ask my sister a question I didn't think she wanted to hear. "Kit," I began, "can I ask why you were following Olaf?"

"You just did," Kit replied automatically, like she always did, but her shoulders had tensed again. She ran a hand through her hair. "I just—I wanted to know what he was up to."

"What was he up to?"

"Not much. He spends a lot of time with Esmé, but there was nothing I could find to tie them specifically to any plots. They probably just hide it well, though." 

I didn't want to ask the next question either, but I had to. "What did Dewey want, when he talked to you?"

Kit's mouth twisted. "....nothing. It was nothing." 

"Nothing?" It was hard to believe my sister would have deserted even a self-positioned post over just nothing. 

"He just—" Kit fidgeted with the edge of her jacket, pulling the hem tight around her fingers. "He just wanted to talk. About me. He asked how I was doing. If I was okay." 

I didn't say anything. Dewey Denouement was better than Olaf, but I was still a little surprised that at that moment my sister had prioritized him over following a potentially dangerous associate. 

"Don't give me that look," Kit said darkly. 

I blinked. "What look?" 

"I know what you're thinking. You think I haven't thought the same thing?"

"What?"

Kit clenched her jaw tight again. "That if I hadn't gone," she said, her voice low, "I would've been able to find out something to prevent this whole thing from happening. And then Beatrice—" She closed her eyes. 

I frowned at my sister. "I'm sorry," I said. 

"Forget about it," she said, shaking her head. "It happened, and I can't—I shouldn't—just forget about it. It's not going to happen again, anyway. I'm not that stupid." 

My eyes found their way up to the portrait on the wall again. I thought about Olaf, and the look on his face when Kit had mentioned Esmé, and the thought I'd had in that moment. I wanted to ask Kit about it, but I also didn't. I knew what her reaction would be, and I knew I wouldn't like it. I knew she wouldn't like it. But there are many things in this world that we don't like and have to go through with anyway. 

"Kit," I said, "do you think everything adds up here?"

Kit frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Someone's lying," I said. "Or everyone is. Or covering up for someone else. Or they just don't realize it."

"That sounds like almost every situation we've ever been in."

"There's things that just don't feel right—Olaf's reactions, what Bertrand told me—and why hasn't anyone seen Esmé?" 

"What are you getting at?" 

I took in a breath. "I wonder," I said, "if Beatrice was really here that night."

Kit's face did exactly what I thought it would. Her mouth pulled into a sad frown, her eyebrows furrowing. As we got older, she tended to look that way often around me. 

"Hey," she said, very gently, "I know you—"

"I'm just saying," I said quickly. "I'm just thinking out loud. Stranger things have happened."

"But this—there's no way around it, Beatrice—Beatrice _is_ dead. I know it's hard, _I know_ , but—"

"Fine," I said, shaking my head. "Forget it, Kit."

"L—"

"I said, _forget it._ " It came out harder than I wanted it to. I walked away from her, frowning down at the floor. "I'll think about it myself."

Kit was silent for a few moments. "I hate it when you do this," she said softly.

"Do what?" I asked, turning back around to face her. I was angry with my sister and I let it get away with me. "Get in over my head because I want to _know_? What else am I supposed to do? What else was I trained to do?" 

Kit didn't reply. She just stared at me, with that expression I was sadly accustomed to. We looked at each other for what felt like a long time, until my anger faded away and I felt horrible about it and Kit once again looked as tired as I felt. 

"I'm sorry," she said. 

"Forget about it," I said again. 

Kit stood up. She walked over to me. "Anything else you need me to do?" 

I shook my head. 

"Are you sure?"

I shook my head again. 

She stared at me a little longer before she said anything else. "I'll see you later," Kit said, and she left.

I stood there and glared at the floor. Kit thought I was wrong, which was understandable, as I had been wrong before on multiple occasions, but I didn't want to be wrong this time. She'd been right when she'd said that something was going on in our organization, something more than the usual things we all got into. It didn't seem that far-fetched to think that might apply here as well. 

There was one way to make sure. Just in case.

-

Despite not talking to him for months, I managed to track down Hector fairly easily. When your associates know the kind of food you favor, it is not difficult to find you, especially when it is around dinner time and you're supposed to be eating. I found Hector in a Mexican restaurant. He sat in a back booth, away from the light from the windows and the overhead lamps, eating a quesadilla and perusing the newspaper, if you could call _The Daily Punctilio_ a newspaper, which I suppose you could in the sense that it was made of paper and had words constructed into sentences that may or may not be news.

I slid into the seat across from him. "Hello, Hector."

Hector jumped, nearly dropping the quesadilla. He did drop a section of the newspaper, though, which was probably for the best. "Snicket! I heard a rumor you were back, but I—"

"I am," I said. "For now, anyway. I need a favor." 

"Of course," Hector said. "What is it?"

"It's about Beatrice." 

Hector blinked in surprise. "But she's—"

I shook my head quickly. "I know, just hear me out on this. I need you to tap the phone in her apartment."

"You need me to _what_?" 

"You heard me."

Hector stared at me, the quesadilla dangling in his hand. "Why?"

"I just need to make sure," I said. 

"Of what?"

"I don't know." I did know, but I didn't want him to have the same reaction Kit had. I didn't like being vague about it, but I didn't have any choice. 

"That's pretty specific," Hector commented, frowning. 

"Just trust me, Hector. It's a precaution." 

Hector took a few more bites of his quesadilla and chewed thoughtfully. "Alright, Snicket. I'll go there tonight, okay?"

I smiled. "Thank you."

-

I didn't have a reason to be in Beatrice's apartment later that night, but I was there anyway. Hector was downstairs, all the equipment set up to tap the phone, ready in case anything happened. Nothing would probably happen. I didn't have to be there.

But I wanted to be there. 

I told myself that I would be looking for what Beatrice had hidden, what Olaf wanted and what Kit and I hadn't yet found. It didn't hurt to look again. It was probably wise to look again, in fact.

I didn't mean for it to happen, but when I stepped into the apartment and turned on the lights I found myself looking at her portrait again. The longer I stared at it, the more I heard her. 

_I'm going to miss this when you're not here,_ she'd said, stirring the straw in her root beer float. _Whatever will I do, Mr. Snicket?_

I'm sure you'll think of something, I told her. I said that there were diners in most towns that probably served a variety of carbonated drinks with ice cream in them. 

She smiled at me, the smile that would've made me do anything, the smile that had me there in that apartment. _You won't be there,_ she said. 

I had said that maybe I could arrange something. It shouldn't be too hard to see each other. It shouldn't be too hard to sneak away from our chaperones, who never knew everything anyway. 

I didn't. I hadn't. I couldn't. I turned away from the portrait and stared at the records by the record player until the face of Tito Puente was burned into my mind and Beatrice's wasn't. 

I reminded myself I had a job to do. I reminded myself that several times. Myself reminded me that that didn't mean it was going to be easy. 

I didn't want to be in Beatrice's bedroom. That was a line I did not, under any circumstances, want to cross, and why I'd had Kit search it instead of going in there myself. But Kit wasn't here now to check it again, and I had to find what it was. I still didn't know what it was, but I had to look for it anyway.

Beatrice's bedroom was styled similarly to the rest of the apartment, and in general, like most people's bedrooms. The closet doors were the kind that slid against each other when you pushed them. There was a white vanity and dresser against one wall. The bed was on the other side of the room. There were books in here as well, piled on bedside tables. Everything looked clean and neat. 

I tried to make the search as quick but thorough as possible. There was nothing under the bed. The dresser drawers were filled alternately with more books and clothes, and I used the books to prod through the clothes for anything that stood out, anything that clunked or crinkled. 

_Nothing_. I still found nothing. I looked around the room again, thinking it would be helpful if I knew _what_ exactly it was Beatrice had hidden. I thought back to what I'd seen Olaf look through—behind books, behind picture frames, inside vases. It couldn't be very big, then. 

I opened the jewelry boxes on the vanity, I looked inside the shoes in the closet, behind all the books, inside the books, inside anything I could find. And I still _hadn't found it_. The most notable thing was the small key I'd found in one of the jewelry boxes, but there wasn't anything I could find that had a matching lock. I replaced the books and the shoes and the box lids and left the bedroom, thinking I could read through the entry in her diary again and try to see if she'd left any other clues. 

"Well, well, well."

I was doing an awful lot of spinning around when people walked into a room that day, and I did it again, still gripping the handle of the bedroom door. Only instead of Ramona being in the main doorway, like she'd been earlier, it was Olaf, lounging against the door frame, that same smile on his face. I was getting sick of that smile. 

"What are you doing here?" I asked, although I had a good idea why. 

"Just thought I'd drop by," he said. 

"Don't you have anything better to do?" But even as I said it, I knew it wouldn't be able to get rid of him. A similar sentence hadn't worked yesterday, and it didn't look like it was going to work now. 

"Nope," Olaf said. "And neither do you, it looks like, so you can get off your high horse, Snicket." 

I frowned. "I'm supposed to be here," I told him. It was true. More or less. 

Olaf eyed the bedroom door behind me, my hand still on the doorknob. His grin became too wide. "And you guys all think _I'm_ creepy," he laughed, walking forward leisurely, his hands in his pockets. "Isn't this a little much, even for you?"

I jerked my hand away from the doorknob and glared at Olaf, my shoulders tensing. Olaf stumbled a little as he came towards me, and I tried to brace myself, because an intoxicated Olaf was worse than just an Olaf drunk on his own self-confidence and a smaller amount of alcohol. 

"You'd think you'd be more careful," Olaf said. His smile pulled even more. _You think you'd learn,_ I heard. _I hate it when you do this._ "You always get in too deep, don't you? That's what your sister always said, anyway."

"We're not talking about my sister," I said. 

"Mm, I guess we aren't," Olaf said, shrugging. "We're talking about someone else." His eyes flicked to the portrait on the wall and then back to me. "I'll give her this, she was pretty. You thought that too, didn't you?" 

I didn't reply. I didn't look at the portrait. _He just likes getting under people's skin, doesn't he?_ I heard it anyway, and then I hated that I heard it, because it just proved Olaf right. And it wasn't that I didn't know I loved Beatrice, but to hear him bring it up made it seem twisted and wrong. 

"You think that now, I guess. What, you think she's going to come out of the wall and profess her love for you? What dream are you in, Snicket?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about." I tried to make it sound like I didn't care, but I couldn't. 

"I mean, what happened to the _last_ girl you liked?" Olaf said, completely ignoring me and looking up at the ceiling. "What was it again? Oh, I _know_ I know this one, it's right on the tip of my tongue...."

I grit my teeth together and looked anywhere but at Olaf. I tried to focus on the face of Tito Puente again but I couldn't see him from this side of the room. I didn't want Olaf to go on but I couldn't find the words to stop him. They all seemed to stick in my throat, and it hurt to breathe around them. It hurt to breathe at all. 

"That's right!" Olaf exclaimed, rocking back on his heels. "You killed her father and she ran away from you! Well, good thing most of us are orphans, that first thing's already taken care of. But the running away thing, well, I'm sure Beatrice would do that if she saw you now." 

I clenched my hands into fists so he wouldn't notice they were shaking. "Get out." 

"I'm just telling it like it is!"

"You don't know _anything_ ," I told him fiercely. "I want you to get out." 

"Come on, Snicket," he said, and I knew he was goading me, but I let him do it anyway, I let him get away with it, I let him get to me. "Your sister isn't here to protect you. You think you can stop me from doing what I want?"

"Yes," I said. 

" _How?_ " 

I thought about the usual answers, how good and noble people would naturally triumph over the wickedness in the world, even if it took time. How there were people out there already working against him. How I should be confident and secure in the fact that justice would get him eventually. How I didn't have to do anything specific, just enough to make sure it happened, how I didn't have to ask why or how but just know instead that I was doing my job. 

But in that moment, I hated Olaf and everything he stood for, everything he stood against, everything he'd done and might have done and would go on to do. I knew he was vile and wicked and a liar and probably a murderer, and that the world would be better off without him, everything would be better if he just wasn't there. 

_Doing my job_ had become a phrase that could mean too many things. But that was only a distant thought in my head then. I didn't care. All I cared about was that Olaf was _wrong_ and if he said one more thing I would show him how wrong he was. 

Something like that must've shown on my face, because Olaf smiled approvingly. 

"See, this is what I almost _like_ about you, Snicket," he said, nodding slowly. "You get it. You'd do it again."

I felt all the color drain out of my face. All the fight and all the breath rushed out of me like a punch to the gut. It was with a slow, dawning horror that I really understood, probably for the first time, that my life and everyone's lives had spun so far out of control in our quest to even just do _one_ good thing, even the smallest good thing. This was what we'd become. Or, at least, what I had. That was bad enough. 

"No I wouldn't," I whispered, and I sounded like a petulant child and I hated that too.

Olaf leaned in close. I could smell the liquor on his breath. "I don't think you're noble, Snicket," he smiled. "I think you're wicked. I think all of us are, or we will be." He didn't sound bitter. If anything, he sounded satisfied. He took a step back. "I'll be seeing you," he said, and then he walked out, shutting the door with a loud snap behind him.

I stared at the door. People do difficult things for more or less noble reasons, I reminded myself, breathing heavily, my hands still shaking. People do difficult things for more or less noble reasons. People do difficult things for more or less noble reasons. People do difficult things— 

I grabbed whatever was closest and threw it at the door. Sometimes, when one is angry or frustrated, it is helpful to throw things, like pillows or expensive dining ware. Other times, it just makes you feel worse. I looked at Beatrice's diary, splayed open by the door, the pages crinkled from being thrown, the lock twisted from where I'd broken it earlier, and I tried not to cry. It didn't work for too long. I was tired. I'd been tired for a long time. 

A while later, I walked over and picked up the diary. As I smoothed the pages, something fell out from between them and fluttered towards the floor. It was a folded red business card, a little worn and faded. My throat closed up again as I read the words inside. 

_I am sorry I embarrassed you in front of your friends. I only wanted to talk to you. You have always looked like an interesting person, and I very much enjoyed your oral report on the history of the sonnet. If you would care to spend afternoon recess together...._

I'm not ashamed to say it. I cried again. I hated everything I'd done and I hated myself for doing it. 

Not for the first time—and probably not for the last—I wished more than anything that Beatrice was alive. 

I slumped down into one of the chairs by the fireplace and stared up at Beatrice's portrait until my eyes blurred and I fell asleep.

-

It was some time later when I woke up, because someone had turned on a nearby lamp. I rubbed my eyes at the sudden change, sitting up in the chair, and looked up to see a gun very close to my face. I followed the line of the gun up to the hand curled around it, and then the arm after that, and then I looked up into the unmistakable and angry face of—

_Beatrice._

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, she was still there, standing over me, her dark brown, almost black hair curling in waves down her shoulders, her mouth a thin line, her gun still pointed at me. I dug my nails into my palms, just to make sure, and the honest relief unfurling in my chest only increased when the pain confirmed that I wasn't dreaming. 

"You're _alive_ ," I whispered. 

"Who are you." She didn't say it as a question. She said it as a demand, in the kind of cold voice that would've made me afraid if I hadn't been an associate. "Where's Bertrand." 

"I don't know," I said. "I'm Lemony Snicket."

Beatrice's eyes grew wide. She took a step back, lowering her gun, and gaped at me, all the anger in her expression falling away. " _Lemony_? What—what are you doing here?"

I thought about how to answer that, what with the murder victim standing in front of me and looking incredibly alive. "Well," I said, clearing my throat, "I think there's going to be some debate about that now. I thought I was investigating a murder."

"Whose?"

There was no graceful way to say it. "Yours." 

Beatrice paled. She grabbed behind her for one of the nearby chairs and sunk slowly into it, gripping it tight. "What? What do you mean, _mine_?" 

"I mean," I said, "someone was killed here Sunday night. We thought it was you." 

"I didn't hear anything about this." Beatrice frowned. "I would've come back right away, why—?"

"Kit and Bertrand kept it quiet," I explained, "because they thought someone from our organization had done it."

Beatrice sighed deeply. It looked like both of us were thinking the same thing—that if it had been someone from our organization, that the schism perhaps went deeper than we had all thought. And if Beatrice was _alive_ — 

"I wonder who it was," she said quietly, turning her head and looking towards the door. The red stain still stood out against the carpet. "Who was here. Who did it." 

"I guess I'll have to find that out now," I said. 

I watched her carefully. Not to disparage the Duchess of Winnipeg's artistry, but the portrait hadn't done Beatrice full justice. Her hair curled a little more around the edges, and she was a little taller than I was, and I hadn't seen her smile yet but I was sure it would be sharper and the kind of smile that would stop me in my tracks. She wore a long red coat buttoned up to her chin, and her deep brown eyes stared around the room as if cataloging everything while she thought. 

I leaned forward. "Can I get you anything?"

Beatrice shook her head. "I'll get it myself," she said, and she stood up slowly and walked into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a glass of water and a raised eyebrow. "Did you eat my cake, Mr. Snicket?" 

"No." A long chill ran down my spine when she said my name, and I had to clear my throat a few times in order to keep going. "Olaf did." 

Beatrice's eyes flashed. She suddenly looked as angry as she had when I'd woken up. "Olaf was here? When?"

"Yesterday and today."

"Did he take anything?" 

"I made sure he didn't."

"Good," Beatrice said fiercely, and she sat back down. She took a long drink before she spoke again, fixing me with a sharp stare that made me a little nervous. "How did you get wrapped up in this?" she asked, a hint of amazement in her voice. "I haven't seen you in nine years and here you are, investigating my murder?"

I swallowed. "It just worked out that way."

Beatrice raised an eyebrow again. She didn't comment on it, but she didn't look away from me, either.

"Can I ask you something?" I said. 

She took another sip. "I guess you'll have to."

"Where were you?"

Beatrice leaned back in her chair, still considering me with her dark eyes. Her fingertips tapped against the side of the glass. "I went away," she said, "to think something over."

"The information you had about Olaf."

Her eyes narrowed. "Something like that, yes. I needed time to think about it, to figure out what I wanted to do. It just took longer than I thought it would." 

"Why was Bertrand supposed to be here?"

"I had asked him to watch the apartment for me while I was away." 

I thought about what she'd hidden in her bedroom, the thing I couldn't find. I wanted to ask her what it was, but the look on her face told me I probably wouldn't get very far. 

"Why were you following Esmé?" I asked instead. 

"I was told to follow her," Beatrice said. "She and Olaf are planning something, and I was supposed to find out what it is. I did." 

I wanted to be irritated with Beatrice since she obviously wasn't telling me everything, but I couldn't blame her. I had shown up in her life, in her apartment, after nine years, investigating her death that wound up not being her death at all. I wasn't sure if I would trust me either. 

Beatrice took another sip. "What do you know about Esmé?" 

"Not much," I said. "I know she's considered a threat to the organization."

"She is," Beatrice said. "Very much so. Sometimes I think she's worse than Olaf. What's she been doing?"

"Actually," I said, "no one's been able to find her." 

Beatrice leaned forward, looking concerned. "You don't know where she is?" 

"No."

She set her glass down on the coffee table. "I have to go find her," she said, getting up quickly and moving towards the door. "Come on, you're coming too."

I stood up and grabbed her wrist before she could get too far. "No," I said. 

Beatrice stopped. She looked back at my hand and then up at me. "No?" she echoed. 

"Neither of us are going," I said, "because you're not leaving this apartment." 

She raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?" 

"Someone's tried to _kill_ you," I said, "I don't think it'd be safe for you to—" 

"The fact that we live dangerous lives is nothing new to me," Beatrice said. "I'm going after her. You don't have to come if you don't want to, that's fine." 

"I can't let that happen," I said firmly. "What if something happened to you this time? You should just stay here and we'll talk tomorrow, and—" 

"So, what," Beatrice said, wrenching her hand away from me, "you just show up in my life after nine years and tell me what to do? That's what you're doing now?" 

I stared at her and hoped I didn't look too desperate. As much as I'd wanted Beatrice to be alive, as much as I had missed her, as relieved as I was to find out she was still here, now that she was in front of me, I didn't know what to do. I wanted to tell her everything, and I didn't want to say anything at all. I wanted to let her look for Esmé and I wanted to go with her and I never wanted to see her leave again and I didn't want anything to ever happen to her. I wanted to go everywhere with her and I never wanted to move again. I thought about what Olaf had said, and I thought about all the things I'd done, and I didn't want to drag Beatrice down with me by getting too personal, by getting too close, no matter how much I wanted to.

"I guess so," I said quietly. 

Beatrice looked disappointed—and then she just looked sad. "You know," she said, "I really missed you." 

I felt my stomach drop several feet. "I'll see you tomorrow," was all I said, and I walked out.

-

I didn't leave the building. Instead, I went down into the basement to Hector.

"I haven't heard anything yet," Hector said, looking up as I walked in. "The night's still young, though—" 

"She's alive," I said. "Beatrice is alive."

"What?" Hector gasped. "She's—she's alive?" 

"She's alive," I said again.

The phone on the table in front of Hector clicked a few times, like someone was dialing a number. Beatrice was calling someone. I walked over and grabbed the receiver and brought it to my ear, and Hector stood up beside me to listen. 

_"Hello?"_

_"Bertrand?_ " 

_"....Beatrice? Is that—"_

_"We need to talk."_

_"I'll come over."_

_"No, just—I'll meet you downstairs."_

_"What? No, I'll come up, I'll—"_

_"No. Pull up outside, we can talk in your car."_

_"....alright. I'll be right there."_

I was a little angry at Beatrice for calling Bertrand, but I wasn't completely surprised. I didn't think anything I said could really stop her. 

Hector and I looked at each other. "If she's alive," he said, "then who—"

"I don't know," I said. "We can think about that later. Come on." 

We went back upstairs, passing through the lobby and out into the street. It was hard to see between the darkness and the flickering streetlamps, but I spotted a nearby group of trashcans. Hector and I crouched down behind them. 

Not long after, a car pulled up to the curb. I saw Bertrand in the driver's seat, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. A moment later, Beatrice rushed out of the building and got into the passenger seat. Hector and I couldn't hear them, but we watched them have what looked like a somewhat intense conversation for a few minutes. Afterward, Beatrice got out of the car, and Bertrand drove away. 

Beatrice looked around before she took off in the opposite direction, walking quickly down the street. I could hear her heels clicking even after she had disappeared into the night fog. 

"What now?" Hector asked. 

"You follow Beatrice," I said. "I've got something else to do."

-

I followed Bertrand back to his apartment.

Ramona had been right—it was Bertrand she saw that night, leaving Beatrice's apartment. I was going to find out why. I knocked loudly on the door to Bertrand's apartment and waited until he opened it. 

"Snicket?" He looked shocked to see me. 

"You were at Beatrice's apartment Sunday night, weren't you," I said, getting straight to it.

Bertrand swallowed. He stared at me for a few moments before he said, "Yes. I was." 

"What happened that night?" 

"Why don't you come in," he said with a sigh. 

We sat down in the sitting room. Bertrand didn't offer to make tea this time. He looked everywhere but at me, as if nervous. 

"What happened?" I asked again. 

"I did go over to Beatrice's to rehearse," Bertrand began. "That was my honest intention. But when I got there, before I could even open the door, she opened it and almost ran into me. She looked frightened, and I'd—I'd never seen Beatrice genuinely frightened before. I asked her what was wrong, but all she told me was that something had come up and she had to leave. Then she asked me to stay in her apartment until she came back, because there was something in it that I had to keep safe. She wouldn't tell me what it was. I told her I would, and she thanked me and ran off. 

"I stayed there for a few hours. It was dark before anything happened. I was in the kitchen, and I heard the front door open. I thought it was Beatrice, but she didn't say anything. Everything was quiet. Then I heard the gunshot, and I ran to the front door and I saw—well, I thought I saw Beatrice. I thought it was her." 

"No one but you knew that Beatrice had left," I said. "So why did you think it was Beatrice that was killed?"

"I—I thought she'd come back," Bertrand said slowly. "She didn't say how long she'd be gone, so I didn't know when to expect her. I—I was in shock. It...." His voice trailed off as he looked away. "It looked.... _so much_ like Beatrice...." 

"Why did you leave right away?"

"I—I had to make sure. I went to try and find her. But she didn't tell me where she'd gone, so I called all her usual places but she wasn't there, so I—I assumed it really had been her. Trust me, Snicket," he said, shaking his head, "I was as surprised as you were to find out she was alive." 

"You didn't see anyone else? You didn't see who had done it?"

"No, I didn't. They were gone by the time I'd reached the front room." 

I stared at Bertrand until he met my eyes. "Why did you lie to me?"

"Olaf was there. And I—" He paused. "I didn't know if I could trust you," he said. "I'm sorry. I really am."

His words stung. It wasn't unexpected, but it still hurt to hear him say that. I cast around for something else to ask Bertrand. I remembered what he'd said the first day, and figured now was the time to press it. 

" _Did_ you have unconfirmed dinner plans?"

Bertrand sighed. "We'd talked about it on Saturday. I often asked Beatrice to dinner, and we did go out a few times. But it wasn't—a usual thing or anything. I care a great deal for Beatrice, it's true. And I did tell her that. But she didn't—she said she couldn't think about a relationship right now. And I respected that." 

I sighed and told myself not to feel too good about that. I thought of the conversation Hector and I had seen in Bertrand's car and found myself with another question. "Did she tell you what it was this time? What she hid in her apartment?"

"No. She still didn't tell me." 

I got up. "Thank you," I said, and walked towards the door. 

"What are you going to do now?" Bertrand asked, watching me leave. 

"Figure out what really happened," I said. Then I paused. I dug around in my pockets for the key Bertrand had given me the other day, the one to Beatrice's apartment. "Here," I said, holding it out to him. "You should take it back."

Bertrand looked at it and then back at me. "I think you should keep it," he said. "You might still have more use for it than me."

-

When I returned to Beatrice's apartment in the morning, I knocked. It didn't feel right to use the key anymore.

Beatrice looked a little surprised when she opened the door, but then she smiled tightly. "Come in." 

I walked inside. The stain was gone from the carpet, but other than that, everything was almost exactly the same. But it felt lived-in now, Beatrice's presence filling up her apartment once again. The cross stitch was gone from the couch. The most recent newspaper sat on the coffee table. The new box of tea had been opened and sat brewing in the tea set. The curtains were open, and a bright sunlight spread through the room. A record spun in the record player, not Tito Puente but something softer, a quiet jazz number I couldn't place.

"I was just fixing this," she said, and she walked over to her desk and sat down. I saw her pick up the diary. 

I frowned. "I'm sorry," I said. "I really am." 

"It's fine," Beatrice said, bending over the lock with her screwdriver, but she didn't sound fine. "Nothing I can't fix."

I watched her for a few moments. "Where did you go last night?"

Beatrice twisted the screwdriver with a little more force than necessary. "I did what I told you," she said. "I went to look for Esmé."

"Did you find her?"

"No. I didn't." She turned the screwdriver again, her brow furrowed. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Where did you go, after you followed Bertrand?"

I cleared my throat. "I checked in with some of our associates. Almost everyone's accounted for."

"So you don't know who was killed here."

"No. Not yet." 

I hadn't slept much last night, from contacting people I hadn't contacted in years and thinking through what I'd said to Beatrice over and over again and regretting everything about it. There was something I wanted to say to her now and I didn't know if I could. 

I sat down in one of the chairs and thought it over until I couldn't think it over anymore. "Beatrice," I said quietly.

Her head shot up, the screwdriver skidding across the lock with a short screech. Her eyes were wide. It was like she was shocked to hear her own name, or to hear me say it. I felt something similar. 

"I'm sorry about last night," I said. "I shouldn't have said what I did. You know what you're doing and I shouldn't have interfered. I was just—I was worried about you."

"I gathered as much," she said. "I _do_ know what I'm doing, though. You don't have to worry. In fact, I'd rather you didn't." 

"It's just, if something happened to you this time—something I could prevent, because I'm here—I wouldn't like it."

"I don't need a bodyguard," Beatrice said shortly. "And you weren't doing this on orders or anything. You don't have to make sure I'm okay. You can go back to whatever you were doing before this." She sounded bitter.

I frowned and tried not to think about what I'd been doing before I'd gotten that phone call from Kit. "I'd like to stick around, though." 

"Why?"

"I want to see where this is going," I said. "It's not every day you get to investigate a fake murder."

She did a good job at almost completely hiding the disappointment in her face. "I see," she said. 

"But there's something else, too."

"Oh?" 

I took in a breath. "I did you a disservice by not speaking to you for as long as I did," I said. "I would very much like to work with you again." I really did. It was probably a bad idea, but I wanted to. 

A small smile pulled at the corner of Beatrice's mouth. "You really did, you know."

"I'm sorry for that, too." 

"You're lucky I'm so forgiving," Beatrice said, "and that I missed you as much as I did. Because I missed you a considerable amount, Mr. Snicket." 

I looked at Beatrice, and I saw the intelligent, determined girl I'd fallen in love with when we were kids, and the intelligent, determined woman I still loved as an adult, and I let myself smile. "So did I, Beatrice."

Beatrice smiled back, the full smile I'd been thinking about, and it was sharp and bright and in that moment I knew it would still make me do anything. 

"I guess that makes us associates again," she said. "Partners, even." 

"It certainly does." 

She turned back to her diary and finished fixing the lock. Then she stood and walked over to me, holding out her hand. "Well, then. We'd better get to work, Mr. Snicket."

-

We went to lunch, just the two of us. The restaurant was honestly too nice for the state of my suit, but Beatrice didn't care. It was a dark, quiet place, and we sat in the back like we'd been trained to do in any public setting, even if I preferred to sit next to the exits instead. Beatrice and I both ordered sandwiches.

"What kind of restaurant," I said mildly, as the waiter left, "doesn't even serve root beer?"

Beatrice stifled her laugh in the sleeves of her sweater. "Next time," she said, "we'll get root beer floats. I promise." 

I tried not to get too hung up on the phrase _next time_ , but it didn't work, and it was all I thought about until our sandwiches arrived. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until the food was sitting in front of me, which is often the case. 

Beatrice took a bite of her sandwich. "So, I have an idea," she said, "as to where we can start. I need to find Esmé, and you need to find who was in my apartment and who pulled the trigger. I think I know who might be able to give us a lead." 

"Who?" 

"I don't think you're going to like it," Beatrice said, smiling a little.

"Try me," I said.

"If there's anyone who knows more than they should and will give out that information without thinking," Beatrice began, and I had a horrible feeling of foreboding before she continued, "it's—"

"Geraldine," I muttered. 

"Geraldine Julienne," Beatrice confirmed, still smiling. "You still don't like her?"

"I don't so much dislike her," I said, "as I think she just doesn't understand when to keep her mouth shut. You can't tell me you honestly enjoy her company."

"No, not particularly," Beatrice admitted. "But we both need somewhere to go from here, and at least she'll be able to give us something."

"Let's just hope she hasn't told anyone else," I said. We ate in silence for a few moments until I spoke again. "What sort of information do you give out in your plays?" It was something I had wondered for a while, and I finally had the opportunity to ask. I just didn't know if she'd give me a straight answer. 

Beatrice frowned, and she looked closed off again like she had last night, and I tried not to let it sting too hard, because it wasn't like I'd told her everything about myself, either. 

"Anything deemed important," she finally said. "Anything that could help foil the plot of an enemy. Sometimes it's concrete information, sometimes it's just something small." 

"What you know about Olaf—will you be putting that in?"

"Yes."

"If it's so important, why wait to give it out during a play?" I said, picking at the remains of my sandwich. "Why not act on it at once?"

"I'm not the only one working on things like this. Every Thursday, in fact, around the city, there's a different play from our organization, and a certain group of people attend each performance, take in their information, and compare it to their own. You don't know what another associate knows. I don't want to hinder someone else, especially if I wind up being wrong. I mean, I don't think I'm wrong." Beatrice shook her head. "I can't see how I am, not about this, but I need to make sure. I'd rather wait. It's important, but you can't rush something like this." 

I certainly couldn't fault her for that. I thought of something else to ask her, and I didn't think she'd like that either. "About Sunday," I said. "Does anyone else have a key to your apartment, besides Bertrand?"

"Ramona," Beatrice said. "That's all."

"Could either of them have given it to anyone else? Bertrand gave his key to me."

"That's because you all thought I was dead," Beatrice said. "But Ramona, she wouldn't give it to anyone else. I know that for a fact."

"Would anyone want to break in?" 

"Maybe." She shrugged and stared down at the table. 

I frowned at her, although I felt bad frowning at Beatrice. "Is there anyone specifically who might want to?" I swallowed. "Who might want to kill you, Beatrice?" I asked softly. 

Beatrice looked away, her fingers pulling at her sleeves. "We all do dangerous things that people don't like," she said. "It could have been anyone." 

"Do you have anyone in mind?" I had someone in mind, but I wanted to see what she'd say. I wanted to see if she'd tell me what she was hiding, and why she was hiding it. 

She shook her head and didn't say anything else. I frowned down at my plate and didn't say anything either.

-

Geraldine Julienne worked for _The Daily Punctilio_ and was largely responsible for the numerous falsities printed within it. There had been quite a few occasions where the locations of our headquarters had almost been revealed due to her foolishness, but if there was one good thing about her, it was that she usually happened to be in the right place at the right time. She just didn't see the whole picture.

Geraldine was thrilled to see us, which I thought was surprising, considering I've never made it a secret that I found her difficult to deal with. Her office at The Daily Punctilio was small and neat, with a single typewriter, a whole pile of blank papers, and nothing on the walls but a single framed picture of an outlandish hat. I thought was the exact antithesis of a journalist's office. Beatrice and I sat down in the chairs in front of Geraldine's desk, and Beatrice asked if she'd seen anything of Esmé the past few days.

"Oh, I wish," Geraldine laughed. "I don't see her much to begin with, although I really wish I did, she's so talented! I mean, an actress _and_ a financial adviser! But speaking of that, she actually hasn't turned in her most recent article. I mean, I'm perfectly willing to try to write her column myself, even if I know absolutely nothing about money. I'd do it for her, though!" 

"Have you heard from her at all?" Beatrice asked. "Any phone calls or telegrams?"

Geraldine hummed in thought. "I don't think so. She has this man deliver her articles, she's so busy, you know! What was his name again? Oh, I'm so bad at names—Earl? Eric? Emory? Oscar, maybe?" 

" _Ernest_?" Beatrice said, genuinely shocked. 

"That's it!" Geraldine exclaimed, looking delighted. "Next time I see him I'll finally be able to say hello to him properly! How nice that'll be." 

"What was her article about?" 

"Local wealthy organizations," Geraldine said, as if she were discussing the weather. It still sent a chill down my spine. I didn't like the idea of Esmé being any more involved in our organization than she needed to be, and apparently, neither did Beatrice. She frowned, and I didn't like the look of a frown on Beatrice's face. 

"Thank you, Geraldine," she said politely, and then she stood up and turned to me. "We should get going, Mr. Snicket."

I had something I wanted to ask Geraldine myself. "I'll be a minute," I told her. I waited until she left the office before I looked back at Geraldine.

She blinked up at me excitedly. I'd never seen anyone's eyelids move that fast before, and I never wanted to again. "Anything else I can help you with, Mr. Snicket?"

"I hope so," I said, and I really did. "Did you hear from Esmé on Sunday?" 

"On Sunday? Actually, I really saw her that day!" Geraldine said. "We weren't together or anything, but I went shopping Sunday afternoon because I always go shopping Sunday afternoon because I'm always hoping I'm going to find one of those _marvelous_ outfits that Esmé wears, and instead of finding an outfit, I found Esmé herself! I was going to go over and talk to her, when I realized that I should really be brushing up on my reporting skills, and I decided to just follow her instead!"

There is a word for lucky things like this happening. In fact, there are many words, some of them kinder than others, and the one I preferred for this moment was serendipitous. 

"I mean, how many times do you get the opportunity to see as master of fashion at work? I was already planning the headlines— _Stunning Financial Adviser Buys New Purse_!"

"Was that all?" 

"Mr. Snicket," Geraldine said, smiling, "of course it wasn't! You don't go out and buy _just_ a purse, especially if you're Esmé! No, she bought a whole outfit—oh, what do you think of _Local Actress Buys Entirely New Outfit_?"

"It's charming," I said, and Geraldine beamed at me. "What was the outfit?"

"Oh, it was this long red coat, which I thought was honestly a little understated, given her past fashion choices, and some heels, then she put on this wig that just looked fantastic on her, it was longer than her usual length and not quite as dark as her hair and it curved a little on the ends—"

I stopped listening to her. I turned towards the door, where I could just see Beatrice through the frosted glass. I knew it was Beatrice because I knew she was there. But from behind, she looked like anyone. She looked like anyone in a long red coat, anyone in heels, anyone with long dark hair that curved on the end. 

It was what I'd considered all along, but I still didn't like it, and I especially didn't like that Beatrice clearly wasn't telling me everything she knew about Esmé. I didn't want to tell her what I thought until she told me what had happened that night, and I wasn't even sure when that would happen, considering she seemed to be adamant about keeping it from me. 

_I don't think I've ever been so frightened or worried in my whole life_ , I remembered, and I frowned harder. 

I stood up and turned briefly back to Geraldine. "Thank you," I said. 

"Oh, well," Geraldine called, even as I walked away from her, "it was nice to see you two! I can see the headline now— _Actress and Detective Visit Newspaper Reporter_!"

"I'm not a detective at all," I said, like I had done a long time ago. "Please don't report this," I said, which was a more recent saying I was getting accustomed to using. I pulled open the door.

-

I didn't want to ask Beatrice about Esmé, not yet. I didn't get much of a chance to anyway, considering the moment we left Geraldine's office, we began to look for Ernest. This was harder than it sounded, considering I think even Kit occasionally struggled a little to tell the Denouement triplets apart, and one often found themselves in a situation where they thought they'd been talking to Frank only to find out it'd been Dewey all along. If Ernest knew something, though, then it was worth the hassle to find him.

"It's discouraging," Beatrice said, as we walked through the city, "to think that Ernest isn't as trustworthy as we thought he was."

"It is," I agreed. "I wonder how his brothers feel." I thought about Frank, and then Dewey, and then I thought about Kit, and then I tried to figure out where all of us would wind up, one day, with all the trouble we were in, and I didn't like the answer I came up with. 

Looking for Ernest meant examining the number of places in the city where our organization had at least some semblance of control. We went to the pier first, where we had the luck to run into Widdershins. Although he was supposed to have seen him, he hadn't seen Ernest at all for a few days now. We told Widdershins to get in touch if he heard anything. We checked the bar where I'd first found Olaf the other day, but Olivia hadn't seen Ernest either. She wasn't particularly concerned, however. 

"He comes in sometimes," she said, wiping down a glass. "Do you need him for anything in particular?"

Beatrice and I exchanged a glance. "We're just worried about him," Beatrice wound up saying. "Could you let us know if he does show up?"

"Sure," Olivia said. "Whatever you want." 

No one seemed to be able to tell us where Ernest's apartment was, otherwise we would have checked there as well. We eventually expanded our search to any of the Denouement triplets, but it didn't help. I kept quiet for the most part and let Beatrice do the talking, and I just listened and watched her instead. I watched her and I wondered. I wondered about her and Esmé and the growing knot in my stomach. We found very little in our search, and only succeeded in tiring ourselves out. 

I accompanied Beatrice to the theater that afternoon for the rehearsal Ramona had mentioned yesterday. I figured Beatrice must have told Ramona that she was alive, because when we entered the theater, Ramona herself ran towards us, delight shining on her face, and pulled both of us into the kind of hug I'd forgotten existed. 

"Don't tell me if this gets awkward," she said, holding on tight, "because I am not, under any circumstances, letting go of you two ever again." 

"Oh, well, I guess I didn't need to breathe anyway," Beatrice said, her voice coming from somewhere inside Ramona's hair.

"Lungs are not a necessity after all," I commented into Ramona's shoulder, and when Beatrice and Ramona both laughed, it felt for a moment like we were back in the diner we'd frequented so often as children. It was a comforting feeling, amid everything. 

Ramona did eventually let go, and she stepped back to smile at us for a moment. "You two are really impossible," she said, still laughing as she walked back up to the stage. 

Bertrand smiled at me when I saw him, which I thought was kind of him, considering our last conversation. Then he beamed at Beatrice. "I'm so glad to see you," he said quietly. "That you're alright." 

Beatrice gave him a small smile in return. "I'm glad you're alright, too." 

It seemed, then, that Olaf was the last to know that Beatrice was alive. I heard him before I saw him, as he was whistling some tune backstage, and the noise grew louder as he approached. When he emerged onto the stage, he saw Beatrice almost immediately and froze, his eyes wide, his lips mid-whistle. 

Beatrice watched him carefully, but she still smiled politely. "Hello, Olaf." 

Olaf stared back at her for a moment with a peculiarly blank look on his face—and then his expression changed, and he was back to that perpetual grin he wore so often lately, only it looked more strained than I'd seen before. 

"Beatrice!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide and walking towards her. "Well, would you look at that! Miracles really _do_ happen, don't they?" 

"It looks like they do," Beatrice said. Behind her, Bertrand looked concerned, and Ramona had paused where she was pulling some of the props out from the back, but neither of them intervened. We all watched Beatrice and Olaf, but they said nothing else to each other. 

Then Olaf's eyes found mine for a second, and I expected him to give me a look I wouldn't care for, but he just smiled at me, and it pulled in a way I didn't like. I told Beatrice I would wait for her in the back and made my way to the section of seats by the far wall of the theater. I found my sister there, leaning back in a seat, her arms crossed over her chest. I sat down next to her and watched her survey our associates as they began their rehearsal. 

"You were right," Kit said quietly, her eyes fixed on Beatrice. 

"It was due to happen, I guess," I said. "I wind up being right at least once a year." 

Kit rolled her eyes. "You don't give yourself enough credit." 

I didn't say anything. Instead, I looked towards the stage, watching Beatrice as she flipped through her script. I found myself glowering at her, and I didn't like it. 

"Have you found out anything new?" Kit asked.

I wasn't in the mood to tell Kit what I thought about Esmé, or to talk with her about the Denouements, because I wasn't sure what her reaction would be to either of them. I shook my head.

"Beatrice didn't tell you anything?"

"No." At least I could answer that somewhat honestly. 

Kit looked back at Beatrice, and took her time before she said anything else. "Have you told her?"

I sighed. "No, Kit."

"If you did—"

"I am not," I said, louder and angrier than I intended, "telling her what happened just to—to wring a confession out of her." I looked away from Beatrice, and away from my sister, and away from everything else until I glared down at my shoes instead. I wasn't truly angry, though. I was more worried than anything else. 

I could hear the frown in Kit's voice. "That's not what I meant, L, and you know it. Why are you so riled up?" 

"I don't know," I muttered. I said it again, as if that would help me figure out what I didn't know, and it didn't. I was still thinking about Esmé. I was still thinking hard, and I didn't like what I came up with. I didn't like what I had to do. I didn't like going behind people's backs. 

I stood up. "Kit," I said, "keep an eye on things. I'll be back later."

Kit raised an eyebrow. "Where are you going?" 

"I need to check something."

-

I went to the Veritable French Diner.

It was a small restaurant, but it had wide, great windows that let in light through sheer white curtains, and each round table had a dark blue tablecloth draped over it with a small bouquet of flowers in the middle. If you sat at the right table and got the right waiter before he was transferred to another restaurant, which I did, there was the chance you might find out something. 

"Snicket!" Larry exclaimed when he arrived at my table. "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion?" he offered, almost hesitantly.

I looked around us. It was late afternoon, so there were more people than I would have liked in the room, but not too many that I couldn't say it. "The world is quiet here," I murmured, and Larry smiled. "Why don't you take a seat, Larry. You're not that busy."

He sat down across from me. "What brings you back to the city?"

"A whole mess of trouble," I said. "Did you see Esmé and Olaf here on Saturday?"

Larry nodded. "I did. They often come in, as a matter of fact."

"Did you hear anything they talked about?"

"No, I didn't get a chance to. An associate came in and took over my section for me, including their table. But it looked like they were having a real passionate conversation. They looked—well, they looked happy."

I tapped my fingers on the tablecloth. I didn't want to think about what could make Olaf and Esmé happy. "They came in for lunch, didn't they?"

"Yes."

"So they were given the usual lunch special complete with—" I paused and looked at Larry meaningfully. "The item."

Larry frowned. "Actually," he said, "I didn't see one given to them, but there was one on their table."

The words sunk in, and I still didn't believe them. "Are you saying," I said, leaning forward, "that Olaf and Esmé brought one _with_ them?"

"They must have," Larry said. "That's the only other way they could've had one."

I sat back slowly. I didn't like to think about that. I didn't like to think about that at all, or what it meant for Olaf and Esmé, or what it meant about what Beatrice had hidden in her apartment. I didn't like it, because it complicated things again, and things were already complicated enough. 

"Thank you, Larry," I said, and I stood up. "I'm sorry I can't stay longer."

"Oh, that's fine," Larry said, waving a hand as he got up as well. "We're all pretty busy lately, aren't we?"

"We are," I said solemnly. 

I went back to the theater. The rehearsal was still in progress, and I sat back down next to Kit, who looked at me with concern.

"You look terrible," she whispered. "What did you do, L?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'll find out later." 

Kit sighed. She looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but she didn't. 

Almost an hour went by before she spoke again. "Look," she said. "About what I said earlier. You and Beatrice have really missed each other. If both of you are keeping secrets, you're just going to hurt each other more." 

"I think that's what they call an occupational hazard," I said.

"Oh, _please_ , L," Kit snapped. I turned to her, wide-eyed. She'd never spoken to me like that before. "Not everyone gets another opportunity to fix their wrongdoings." 

Kit didn't look at Olaf, but I did. He walked around the stage, shouting his lines with unnecessary volume. I wondered if he knew Kit was here. 

"If you two pass up a chance to be happy just because you don't want to admit you both made mistakes—and I'm sure both of you have, otherwise we wouldn't even be having this conversation—then I don't know what to tell you, L. There's not a lot of us left," Kit said, and her voice, which had been hard and sharp, suddenly softened. "We can't afford to do things like this to each other." 

I sighed. "You're right," I said, because she was, even if I didn't want her to be. You can think that it's easier, and sometimes better for all involved, if you keep everything secret from one another, but it just winds up creating problem upon problem until you are left with nothing but yourself and your lies and an unbearable loneliness, because you've either driven everyone away or they've died with their own secrets. It was a prospect that looked considerably likely for me, and I didn't like it. I didn't want it to happen to Beatrice either. I just didn't know how easy it'd be.

"Of course I'm right," Kit muttered. "I'm your older sister, that means I'm always right. Well—" She smiled a little. "Almost always." 

I smiled back at her. We both looked somewhat happy, something that hadn't happened in a long time, and we watched the rest of the rehearsal in silence. 

It was cold and dark outside by the time Beatrice and I left the theater. I wished I had gloves. Beatrice tucked her scarf around her neck and we walked quietly through the city streets. In the warmer months, there were people constantly on the streets at night, but the January chill had chased away everyone who didn't need to be there. 

Beatrice sighed, and her breath curled in the cold air. "Where did you go?" she asked.

"What?" 

"During rehearsal," she said. "Where did you go?"

It was for the sake of honesty that I told her the truth. "I went to talk to Larry," I said, and I even kept eye contact with her. 

"Ah," Beatrice said, and she turned away. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. "Do you—what did I ever do to you, Mr. Snicket?"

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You don't trust me anymore," she said, and she didn't ask it as a question. It was a sad statement that hung in the air between us. 

"No," I said, shaking my head quickly. "I do trust you, Beatrice. But I worry about you."

I could see the muscles of her jaw clenching. "I told you not to," she said, and she walked a little faster, a little away from me.

"It's not as easy as that," I said, catching up with her. 

Beatrice shook her head. She didn't say anything until we'd walked a few more blocks. "Did you find out what you wanted to know?" 

"I don't know," I said. It was too quiet after that. 

I went up with her to her apartment, just because. Beatrice took longer than I thought was necessary to find her keys, and she looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn't. I didn't either. 

"I'll see you tomorrow, I guess," she finally said, once she'd unearthed them from her purse. 

I nodded and hoped I didn't look too miserable. "I'll see you tomorrow."

I was only a few feet down the hallway when I heard Beatrice gasp. I turned around immediately and saw her frozen in her doorway, her eyes wide, her hand still on the doorknob. I ran back to her. 

I didn't have to ask what was wrong. I saw it right away. There are a few words for what an apartment looks like when it has been torn apart by someone, and my personal favorite is ransacked, although the nice word didn't make Beatrice's apartment look any better as we stood there and stared at it. The furniture pillows had been thrown to the floor, the portrait on the wall had been tilted as if someone was looking for a secret compartment, the records had been tossed carelessly aside on the floor, although thankfully none of them were broken. The desk papers were crumpled and torn, the desk drawers themselves dangling precariously. The coffee and side tables had been flipped over, scattering pages of the newspaper and shattering the tea set. The saddest sight was the books, pulled out of the bookcases and thrown to the floor, the pages bent and ruffled. At least everything was still in tact, however, instead of engulfed in flames. 

"Is anything missing?" I asked. 

Beatrice looked around the room. She walked forward carefully, scrutinizing everything, putting it all back in place, but she kept her back to me. I watched her flip through the papers on her desk, test the lock on her diary, replace the desk drawers, rearrange the pillows, fix the angle of her portrait. Then she moved towards the bookcases. "Why don't you check the kitchen," she said as she picked up the books from the floor. "You should know my apartment as well as I do by now."

I knew what she was doing, but I agreed anyway. I went to the kitchen but I didn't check anything—not that much had been rifled through. Instead, I eased the door open slightly until there was a space small enough to look through, and I saw Beatrice go to her bedroom. She pulled open one of the bedside table drawers and fiddled with something inside. I heard her sigh of relief and I shut the door. I waited an appropriate amount of time before I walked back into the living room.

Beatrice was waiting by the piano, reorganizing the sheet music, as far away from the bedroom door as possible. "Nothing's gone," she said. 

"I didn't find anything either," I said, then I walked over to her desk and picked up the phone. I didn't dial a number. I listened carefully. Then I pressed the switchhook a few times in succession. "Hector?"

It took a moment for him to answer. " _Snicket_?" 

"Something's happened," I said. I didn't look at Beatrice, even when she came over to stand next to me, looking concerned. "Have you seen anyone around here today?"

" _As a matter of fact_ ," Hector said, " _I did see—well, one of the Denouement triplets. Maybe Ernest? I caught a glimpse of him outside._ "

"Did he have anything with him?"

" _No, I don't think so. What happened?_ "

"There's been a break-in," I said. "But everything's fine. We'll talk later." I hung up, and I finally turned back to Beatrice. She looked back at me, and I could tell she was trying not to appear too scared. I couldn't even get angry with her. I was too anxious to feel anything else. 

"Beatrice," I said, "I want you to tell me what happened Sunday night."

She blinked furiously. "I—I already did, I—"

"Esmé was here that night," I said. "And I think you know that, or you suspect it. I think you have something she wants. I think you're not telling me everything and I don't know why, but if we're going to go any further then you need to tell me, Beatrice."

She swallowed. Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine. Then she walked back to her bedroom, and she opened the drawer again. I saw her unlock a long, thin box from inside with a key from around her neck that she'd had hidden under her sweater, and from the box she pulled out a long, thin rod with a little gear on the end. She slid that end into a small hole in the bottom of the drawer, and the false bottom pulled up. She took out the item inside and replaced the board. 

"This is what Esmé wants," Beatrice said, staring down at what she held in her hands. "I stole it from her." 

I stared at the sugar bowl. Beatrice walked back into the living room with it and sat down on the couch, and I sat beside her. 

"I followed Esmé and Olaf to the Veritable French Diner on Saturday," she began. "I disguised myself as a waiter so they wouldn't recognize me. I knew Esmé had a sugar bowl—it was never collected, and she never turned it in, so I knew it had to be important. I knew it had to have something special on it. And from what I overheard during their lunch, I knew I had to steal it."

She lifted the lid of the sugar bowl, and we both looked down at the small tape recorder inside.

"What did they say?" I asked.

Beatrice shook her head. "They were planning a lot of things," she said. "And it wasn't anything more than what they've already done, or what we think they've already done, but the way they talked about it this time, it—it was worse than usual. They made it sound like they'd do it all and more to get their way. I didn't like it." She took in a deep breath before continuing. 

"I switched the sugar bowls, and I didn't think Esmé noticed, which was probably my first mistake. I hid it in my bedroom. I went to lunch with Olaf on Sunday because I—I thought I could convince him to back off. I thought he'd be easier to talk to than Esmé." She smiled bitterly. "I try to be such an optimist sometimes. But he wouldn't. I came back home and was going to call Bertrand when _Esmé_ called me. She realized I had the sugar bowl, and she—she threatened me." Beatrice closed her eyes. "I'd never been threatened like that, not even from Olaf just an hour before. What she said, it—it genuinely frightened me. I was scared of what Esmé was capable of, what Olaf had planned with her, what they might do. I'd never felt like that before, and I didn't like it. I didn't know what to do, so I—I ran. It was stupid, and foolish, and I regret doing it, but—" She looked up at me. "Have you ever been threatened before, Mr. Snicket?"

I thought back to the highest floor of a medical clinic and the broken window and the man I'd seen there. Then I thought about the circumstances around the last time I'd seen him. "Yes," I said quietly. "I have."

"Then you know it's not very pleasant."

"It's not."

"You sometimes do very foolish things when you're threatened. They don't often make sense. I had to leave. I ran into Bertrand as I was leaving and told him to watch the apartment, to make sure no one got in to try and take the sugar bowl. So I went away, and I thought things over, and I was going to come back anyway—I figured I'd been a coward long enough—when someone almost found me. It looked like Dewey, but it could have been any of them. I suppose it probably was Ernest. Then I knew I had to come back. And then—well. You know the rest." 

"Esmé came to your apartment to look for the sugar bowl," I said. "She must've known you'd left, she might have been following you. She disguised herself as you in case anyone saw her. She didn't see Bertrand, because he wasn't in the main room. And then someone shot her, because they thought she was you." 

"You asked me," Beatrice said softly, "if anyone would've wanted to kill me. Esmé wanted to. She told me so herself. She hated that I saw right through her. And—" She swallowed. "Olaf wanted to." 

"If you thought it was him," I said, "why did you say anything to him at the theater?"

"I'd already tried to talk to him once, and that's how this whole horrible mess started," Beatrice said. "And I—it's just a thought. I don't know for sure. He would never have killed Esmé, for one thing. They use each other too much for one to get rid of the other."

"But he didn't know it was her," I pointed out. "He thought it was you. If you were out of the way—" I shuddered at the thought. "If you were out of the way, no one else would've known their plans. He could've continued with them." 

"But he couldn't have gone to my apartment," Beatrice said, her eyes widening. "He couldn't have—Esmé must've told him she was coming here, they couldn't have acted separately, they're not that uncoordinated. He wouldn't have come here if Esmé was already taking care of it. But that leaves us with Ernest, but he doesn't necessarily have a motive."

"He may not have a motive that we can think of," I said, "but he did break into your apartment, and we can't find him, and he did try to find you when everyone else thought you were dead. That probably was Ernest you saw. He wouldn't have looked for you if he believed you to be dead." 

"True," Beatrice said. "We'll have to start looking for him harder." She sighed long and hard, put the sugar bowl down on the table, and slouched back against the couch cushions. "Tomorrow, though. I don't think I've ever been so emotionally exhausted in my life, Mr. Snicket."

I smiled softly at her. "Can I get you anything?"

"You can make us some tea," Beatrice said, rubbing her eyes. "And then you can stay." 

I felt the smile leave my face. "I can't make any promises," I said quietly. "And your tea set was broken, anyway."

"There's another one in the kitchen. Go make the tea, Mr. Snicket." 

I made the tea. I picked something with chamomile and let it steep while I helped Beatrice put the rest of her apartment back together. Afterwards, we went back to the couch with our tea. Drinking tea alone can often still make one feel better about things, but it works even more when you're drinking it with someone else. Beatrice and I sat and sipped at our tea until we felt marginally better about our situations. 

"That false bottom was very clever," I said. 

Beatrice smiled, her face going faintly pink. "Thank you," she said. "I made it myself." 

"Do you like to do things like that?" I asked. "Invent things?" 

"Sometimes. It's more of a hobby than anything else. What I like the most," she said, "is music."

I glanced over at the piano. "Do you play often?"

"Yes," Beatrice said. "I find it very relaxing. But what about you?"

"What about me?"

Beatrice laughed a little. "I haven't seen you in nine years, Mr. Snicket. I feel like I barely know anything about you sometimes."

I frowned. "Is that why?" I asked. "Why you didn't tell me about Esmé earlier? You don't trust me?" I sounded hurt, but I couldn't help it. It'd been a fairly emotionally exhausting twenty-four hours for me too, and I had a feeling it wasn't quite over yet. 

The smile faded from her face. "No," she said. "That wasn't why." 

"Then what was?" 

She looked down at her teacup in her hands, and then she smiled a grim, pained smile. "We hadn't seen each other in nine years, Mr. Snicket. I didn't—I didn't want to just be that frightened girl who didn't know what to do, because I'm not. But I was so scared, and I—we'd always told each other to just get scared later." She laughed a little bit. "I didn't want you to think any less of me because I couldn't, because I didn't want to admit to myself what had happened." 

"I find telling myself to get scared later works less and less as I get older," I said. "But I would never think any less of you, Beatrice, not at all. Not for anything." 

Beatrice looked up at me. Her smile changed to the one I liked the best, the one in the portrait, the one she'd given me that morning. "Thank you. I suppose I just got used to doing things by myself."

"You don't have to do everything alone," I said. "You can count on some people."

She sat up, still smiling. "Just _some_ people?" she asked. "No one in particular?"

I cleared my throat. "Oh, well," I said, suddenly self-conscious, "not really." 

"Mr. Snicket," she said gently, "you don't have to do everything alone, either. All this time, we could've helped each other."

"I don't know," I said, quicker than I wanted to. "I don't know if I'm much help at all."

Beatrice frowned softly. "What do you mean?"

I gripped the handle of my teacup tighter to try and disguise the way my hands had started trembling, but it didn't work. I set the cup down on the coffee table, but that just left my hands exposed. It was one thing for Beatrice to admit she was scared. It was another for me to admit what I'd been trying to run from.

"Lemony," Beatrice said, resting her hands on top of mine, "what happened in Stain'd-by-the-Sea?"

I swallowed with considerable difficulty. I felt like I had to pull every word out of me, and each one left a large hole somewhere inside. "You read the reports," I said. "You know what happened."

"All I know is that a villain was killed on a train," Beatrice said. "But you don't see it that way, do you." 

I stood up, pulling away from Beatrice. I felt her eyes on me as I walked slowly around the room, trying to say out loud the only question that mattered, even if I had asked it too late. 

"Beatrice," I said, "is it more beastly to be a murderer or let one go free?"

Beatrice was silent for a while, and I didn't like it. "Lemony," she said softly, "I don't know if it's as black and white as that."

I clenched my hands into fists. "There is no moral grey area," I said, "for murder." 

"Maybe there is," Beatrice said. "You were—"

"I was _twelve_ , Beatrice!" I shouted, finally turning to face her, and I tried with everything I had not to look away. I had never really yelled at anyone before, but I couldn't stop myself now. "I was a child! I pushed a man to his death, and I'm supposed to feel proud of that? That I did something good, something right?"

Beatrice stood up, her eyes hard and blazing. "It doesn't matter if it was good or right, Lemony, you did what you _had_ to do! You knew what Hangfire had done, what he was capable of! No one else was going to stop him, that's why you got involved in the first place!" 

"I shouldn't have been there, in the first place!" I shot back. "I should never have been in that town! I gave up everything to—"

"To save something important!"

"No, to become what I was trying to stop!" 

"No, listen to me!" Beatrice said, and she stormed over to me, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine. "If you hadn't done it, everyone on that train would've died, and you know it! There was no other option, there was nothing else you could've done!" 

"I could've done something! I could have—"

"What? You could have _what_? Talked to him? Do you really think he would've listened to you?" 

"You tried to talk to Olaf!" I reminded her. 

Beatrice took a step back, her eyes wide. She stared at me for a long moment. "I think," she said quietly, "that there is a point at which you can reason with someone and a point at which you have to do something. You'd tried to reason with him already, and you couldn't. I try to reason with Olaf, now, because he was a volunteer, he still _is_ a volunteer. I want to believe the best in him, because the schism has done so much damage already. I have to believe, because I don't _want_ to hurt him." 

"Then you would do the same?" I asked, watching her carefully and feeling a cold sadness sinking through my chest. "You'd do it, if you had to?"

Beatrice clenched her jaw tight. "I don't know," she whispered. "Maybe I would." She swallowed. "And if I did do it—if I was saving someone else, if I was saving this organization, not even just as an organization, but as my friends, my family—then it wouldn't matter if it was _right_ or _wrong_ , what it meant to do it, whether it was beastly or not. I would be doing what I needed to do." 

I wanted to admire the way her voice barely shook as she said that, but all I could see was the way her hands trembled. We were too young to be making these decisions, and we'd always be too young. 

I sat back down slowly. "It's hard," I said, which didn't exactly encompass the scope of the situation or our lives, but was the only thing I could think to say. "It's hard, and I'm tired, Beatrice."

She sighed, the kind of world-weary sigh I often heard from all of us when we thought no one else was watching. "I know." 

"The older I get, the worse I feel about it all. What we've all done. What I've become in trying to do what I thought was—" I didn't know if I wanted to say _right_. I moved on. "I don't even know what I wanted anymore." 

Beatrice looked at me sadly. She sat down beside me and took my hands in hers again, and I held onto them tighter than I'd ever held onto anything before. 

There are things no one tells you about becoming a volunteer, especially when you don't exactly volunteer to be a volunteer to begin with. They don't tell you the things you'll be doing. You suspect the things you'll be doing, and you think you can do them, but you never _really_ think you'll be doing them. And then you do them, and you realize everything is much more complicated than you thought it was, that in order to try and do one thing you have to give up something else. 

Then you get older, and your associates get older, and you all find yourselves thinking things like this, and sometimes the only thing you can do is sit in silence with them and think about the things you've done, the things you're trying to do, and what they all mean. You don't necessarily figure out any answers, because there are no real answers. You just think about everything and feel the certain misery reserved for the people who try to do their best. That's what Beatrice and I did, for a long time. 

"Lemony," Beatrice said, a while later, "we're still here. We've still got the chance to try and change things, to try and do them differently. We can still be the people we hoped we'd be." 

I looked at Beatrice, at her face softly illuminated by the nearby lamps, at the way her eyes held mine. I squeezed her hands. "We can try," I said. "But I don't know if it's enough."

"It's enough," she said, and I let myself believe her.

-

In the morning, we didn't talk about the night before, but that was fine. We didn't have to talk about it. We'd said everything we needed to. That didn't mean we felt much better about any of it, but we'd come to terms about it.

Instead, Beatrice and I made breakfast and talked about books. I found out Beatrice made a mean fried egg, much better than any other eggs I'd ever had in my life, and we discussed for quite a while whether or not a story written by an Irishman about people at a party really had a plot or not, and what that said about what kind of story it was. Then we compared the plays of an American playwright and wondered what social commentary she'd been going for in one of her earlier plays about a boarding school and a later play about a hotel. It was calm and quiet and just what the two of us needed. It was late morning when we realized how much time had passed.

Beatrice sighed. "We should get going," she said. "Before Ernest manages to slip away from us." 

I set down my fork. I hadn't forgotten about Ernest, but he hadn't been at the forefront of my mind, and now I felt that familiar sinking anxiety that appeared every time I had to do something considerably dangerous. "What are we going to do when we find him?" I asked.

"We'll take him to headquarters," Beatrice said. "They can deal with him there."

We set the dishes in the sink and put our coats on. It felt like we were gearing up for a final battle, although we really weren't. I turned to Beatrice, watching her slide her hair out from under the collar of her coat, how her eyes were alight with a bright, glistening fire that I'd seen so often when we were children. It was nice to see it now. It was nice to be here, with her. I thought about all the times I'd left the city, and all the times I'd come back. They were very few. I thought about Beatrice, her hands in mine. I thought about all my miserable worries and how she'd made them seem smaller. 

She turned to me. "Well," she said, smiling a little, "it looks like this is it, Mr. Snicket."

"It looks like it is," I agreed. "Once we find Ernest, we should be in the clear."

"Hopefully," she said. "And then what?" Her smile grew. "What do you usually do when an assignment is over?"

I thought about what I'd been doing last time, and then I tried not to. "Leave," I said. "But not this time." 

"What makes this time different?"

"You," I said. "I'm staying. Here. With you."

Beatrice blinked a few times. Her face flushed as she stared at me. "Are you really?" she asked, a little breathlessly. 

"If you want me to," I said, because I thought it would be polite to give her a way out if she wanted it, just in case. 

"I do," she said quickly. "I meant it, what I said last night. Do you?"

"More than anything," I said. I moved closer to her and took her hands. I had run from her for nine years. I couldn't do it anymore. "I'd rather never be away from you again, Beatrice. I want to stay here and make tea for you until we grow too old to hold teacups, I want to listen to every record you have until I know them all and know all of you. I want everything we've missed the past nine years, I want to figure out where our lives are going and go wherever that is with you."

It can be hard to admit the feelings you have for people, as you never know what is going to happen, and sometimes the best you can hope for is just to tell them anyway and hope that they feel the same way, and if they don't at least you've done something, and can wallow in a little less misery than you would've if you'd never said anything at all. 

But Beatrice's smile went bright and delighted as I talked, and she tangled her fingers into mine. "I'd like that," she said softly. "I'd like that a lot. I thought about that, things like that, all these years. But I didn't know if I'd see you again, so I didn't think it could really happen. But now you're here, and I'm so glad that you are, that we could have the chance to try again." 

Our faces were so close together now, I could count every single faint freckle on her nose, and then every individual eyelash as she came even closer. There was just Beatrice and I, in this moment, nine years of waiting no longer between us. 

And then the phone rang. 

Beatrice and I stepped back from each other. Her cheeks were still red and I was sure she could hear my heart beating in my chest. We stared at each other for a few more seconds before realizing that the phone was in fact still ringing. Beatrice cleared her throat and picked up the receiver, tilting it so we could both listen. "Hello?"

" _He was just here,_ " came Olivia's voice, hushed and quiet. " _In the bar. He came in, looked around, and then left, just a moment ago. If you move now you might be able to catch him._ "

Beatrice frowned. "We're on our way," she said, and hung up. She turned to me, and her mouth curled slowly back up into a sharp grin. "Are you ready, Mr. Snicket?"

"I'm ready," I said, because I was. We stopped briefly to ask Hector if he'd come up to the apartment to stay there while we were gone, on the off chance that someone tried to get in after us. Then we high-tailed it to Bayberry. Beatrice and I got there in time to see the back of Ernest Denouement a block ahead of us, weaving in and out of the small crowd of people moving through the city. We sped up to keep an eye on him. He walked at a furious pace, a suitcase swinging from his hand.

I've said before that the key to following someone is to follow someone who doesn't expect to be followed, but that doesn't always work out to be the case. Ernest was the kind of man who looked like he knew he was going to be followed and was going out of his way to make sure no one could do it. He loitered in doorways and alleyways, plucked the hats off of strangers, and at one point even doubled back through the same shopping district. Beatrice and I had a hard time keeping an eye on him as we employed similar tactics in following him. We'd all had the same training, after all. 

"What do you think he's got?" Beatrice asked quietly as we sidestepped around a group of people walking just as quickly as we were but in the opposite direction. "Where do you think he's going?"

"I don't know," I said. I didn't like not knowing. There was no way he could have the sugar bowl, since it was still in Beatrice's apartment. The suitcase looked like it had a weight to it, as it swung heavily in Ernest's hand, so it had to contain something. Another sugar bowl? Another piece of evidence? The required belongings to successfully skip town, leave the country? 

"What do you know about Ernest?" I whispered. "Besides the fact that he isn't as trustworthy as we thought he was."

"Very little," Beatrice admitted. "I've rarely ever seen him. What about you?"

"I met him once," I said. "At least, I'm assuming it was him. He was with my sister and Olaf. I got the impression that he was good at hiding things."

Ernest made the mistake of looking behind him just as Beatrice and I made the mistake of making eye contact with him. The three of us froze for a good five seconds before Ernest turned tail and ran down the street, pushing people aside in his wake. 

We ran after him. 

He tried to lose us down more alleyways, in more disguises, but Beatrice and I, racing behind him hand in hand, were too quick for him. We'd already chased him this far. We weren't going to let him go now. 

He brought us to a modest apartment building. Ernest tore open the door and rushed inside. Beatrice and I hung back for a moment to make him think he'd lost us before moving silently inside. The lobby was dark but clean, and deserted. I could hear Ernest already slamming his way up the stairs. 

I followed Ernest first, as my shoes were softer than Beatrice's on the staircase. When he disappeared into a room on the third floor, I leaned over the railing and motioned for Beatrice to come up. 

We surveyed the door Ernest had entered from the end of the hallway. I gestured to Beatrice to ask if we should just kick the door down, and she gestured back that, with her heels and my shoes and the sturdiness of the door, it probably would take a few unnecessarily noisy kicks. I gestured to ask again if she had any sort of weapon on her, to which she pulled her gun out of her handbag. I felt reassured but also nervous. I was worried about it going off, accidentally or on purpose. Beatrice caught the look on my face and shook her head. It was what we did. We didn't have the time to worry. 

The two of us inched down the hallway, and that was when we noticed the door was in fact already cracked open. Light slid out from the opening into a thin, almost imperceptible white line across the floor. No wonder we'd missed it. I pushed on the door, just a bit, and held my breath as the opening widened and Beatrice and I peered through. 

One often expects sinister people to have a sinister look about them, but this isn't always the case. It was not the case with Ernest Denouement. He didn't look suspicious at all. He looked just like his brothers, which is to say he had a narrow face and dark eyebrows and a look about him that made him appear to always be searching for something. I had seen the look on Dewey quite a few times. But it could also have been because Ernest was digging through the suitcase. 

The rest of the room was almost carefully bare. There was a table, on which Ernest had set the suitcase. There was a chair. There was one window. There was another door on the left wall, closed and with just the faintest bit of light coming out from the bottom. I looked back at Ernest and noticed what he'd been taking out of the suitcase—tight rolls of bandages. 

I wanted to watch a little longer, to see what Ernest would do, but he was a man on a mission as he searched through the suitcase. I didn't think it would be wise to linger any more than we already had. We had a job to do, at the end of the day. I opened the door the rest of the way. 

"Ernest," I said. 

Ernest's head jerked up, and he stared at us with cold eyes. He dropped the bandages in his hands. "Well," he said. "It looks like this is it." He was surprisingly collected for a man cornered in a small apartment. 

"You tried to kill me," Beatrice said behind me, her frown clear in her voice. "You killed Esmé instead. You broke into my apartment. I wouldn't have expected that from you, Ernest. I don't know you well, but I held you in a very high regard, just like your brothers. I considered you an associate." 

Ernest shrugged, although his mouth seemed to tighten when Beatrice mentioned his family. "I was following orders. You would've done the same, I think."

"Whose?" I asked. 

He shook his head. "It'll take more than that to get me to talk, Snicket. And by that time, I don't think you'll care." 

I frowned myself. I didn't like it. I didn't like any of it. He didn't act like a man at the end of his rope. He acted like a man playing a part. All of us did that. I just didn't have a good feeling about Ernest doing it. 

"That's enough," Beatrice said. "You're coming with us."

And he came with us with a very minimal amount of fuss. I remained in the room while Beatrice took Ernest aside and secured his hands so he was less likely to get away. I was staring at the door at the end of the room and the thin sliver of light underneath it when Beatrice came back in.

She took my hand. "We've done what we can," she said. "We've done more than we were supposed to, even. Both of us. Someone else can look into it now." 

I knew she was right. I looked at my hand in hers and also knew that I'd had enough, and so had she. It was time to go. 

We took Ernest and his suitcase to headquarters. I was thinking about how fractured all of our allegiances were becoming, and so, it seemed, was Beatrice, so we didn't take him to the one in the city, instead making the longer trip to one of our other headquarters stationed in a different city. It was lengthy, but I hoped it'd be worth it. 

We went back into the city to Beatrice's apartment. It was only when we were inside that Beatrice checked her watch, and she let out a small shriek as she looked at the time. I jumped, as that was rarely a noise that preceded something good.

"Oh, I almost forgot!"

"What?" 

"It's _Thursday,_ " Beatrice said, pulling off her coat and running to her bedroom. "We have to go to the theater, there's a play tonight, we have to meet Ramona there—" 

I remembered, and I looked at the clock on the wall. If we hurried, we could just about make it in time. 

She came back out quicker than I thought she would, wearing a long red dress, her hair up and away from her face. She looked at me and smiled expectantly. 

"Am I dressed for the theater?" I asked, feeling considerably self-conscious in my brown suit and coat next to Beatrice. 

Beatrice looked at me thoughtfully. "Well, your suit could be nicer, but you're wearing a tie, so you should be fine." She walked over to me and I linked my arm in hers.

We took a taxi to the theater on the other side of the city. We rode in a companionable silence, watching the setting sun wash the city in a pale orange. I held Beatrice's hand in mine the whole ride there. 

When we got out of the taxi, I saw Ramona standing outside the theater, waving in our direction, her program clutched in her hand. The white lights seemed to make her smile even brighter than it usually was. "Everyone else is already inside," she said when we reached her, "but I thought the three of us could sit together."

Beatrice, Ramona, and I sat towards the front of the theater. It was clean and well-kept, with deep red curtains and dark blue seats. It was a fairly good play—our organization didn't just perform these plays for the codes inside them, but also for our own enjoyment and for the public that attended them as well. The codes themselves were difficult, to the point that an untrained civilian wouldn't notice them, but a volunteer could crack them with a bit of thought. The most pertinent piece of news we received from the play was that one of our buildings in another city had been compromised and was no longer safe to use—thankfully not the one Beatrice and I had taken Ernest to, but we still looked at each other in worry. If it had happened once, it could happen again. I hoped Ernest would be taken care of before then.

That being the only truly concerning moment of the night, a great success as far as outings for our organization went, I watched Beatrice the rest of the time, and the way her eyes shone in the darkness, the way she decoded everything immediately in the commonplace book on her lap. It was nice to sit there between Beatrice and Ramona. It was nice to see Ramona mouthing along the words of the play as she took her notes, to see Beatrice so focused, to sit there and feel almost safe between good friends. If this was what it meant to be involved, to know when to stop in an assignment, I was starting to think that maybe I wouldn't mind. 

After the play, the three of us walked outside. It was as dark as it had been in the theater, but much more well-lit, and a good deal colder. 

"Well, I'm hungry," Beatrice said, putting her commonplace book back into her bag. "Mr. Snicket, would you escort a nice lady to the nearest restaurant?"

"I'd be delighted," I said. Next to us, Ramona hid her smile behind her gloves. I thought it would be polite to ask her to join us anyway, so I did.

But Ramona shook her head. "No, that's alright, I've got plans with Olivia. You two lovebirds will just have to soldier on without me!" 

Beatrice laughed, and I felt my ears go red. Ramona hugged both of us briefly, which I was thankful for given our last adventure in hugging Ramona, and dashed off in the opposite direction. 

Beatrice and I walked fairly leisurely for someone who had said she was hungry, but she didn't seem to be in that big of a hurry. She had her arm linked through mine again and smiled until I couldn't help but smile too. 

Suddenly, Beatrice stopped. "Look!" she exclaimed, pointing ahead of us. 

I guess I had known somewhere what part of the city we were in, but I'd forgotten that we were as close as we were to that building. It was a relief, almost, to see it after all this time. "It's still there," I said quietly.

"Of course it is," Beatrice laughed. "Come on," she said, and I let her take my hand and pull me across the street and into the diner we'd gone into so often as children. 

It was exactly the same. The booths were still a stunning if slightly faded red, and the smooth black and white tables were still slightly sticky around the corners. The cream walls looked brighter than I remembered, but that was probably because of the night outside and the bright white lights illuminating every corner of the diner inside. The excessively chrome jukebox still stood by the door, and Beatrice paused to flip through the options before she deposited a few coins and pressed one of the buttons. 

We sat down in the booth we'd always used, the one in the back where you could see the rest of the diner perfectly, including the exit. We ordered root beer floats and listened to the soft opening guitar of the song Beatrice had picked. 

"You know, there's a cover of this song," I said, "where a singer sings it with his daughter."

Beatrice rolled her eyes. "I know. I'm surprised this jukebox had the original. I like it a lot better."

I smiled. "So do I." 

It was a little strange to be in that diner as adults. Although I wished we would, I hadn't ever thought we'd do it again. There was something comforting about being back there, looking across the table at Beatrice, alive and vibrant. It made me almost certain things would finally work out for once. 

The waiter brought us our drinks. Beatrice stirred the straw in her float idly. "I went out to dinner with Bertrand once," she said, "and he ordered a chocolate ice cream soda. I told him that's considered a crime against humanity and didn't talk to him for a whole week." 

"I have nothing against other forms of ice cream soda," I said, "but I do think root beer is the best." 

"I agree," Beatrice said. She took a sip and I watched the grin spread over her face. "They're perfect." 

I looked down at my own root beer float. I had something I wanted to ask her, not about the investigation but about her, but I didn't want it to seem callous or inconsiderate or like I was asking her to pick a favorite, because that is not really how anything works. 

"How do you feel about Bertrand?" I wound up asking, which definitely wasn't how I wanted to word it but was how it came out regardless. 

Beatrice raised an eyebrow, but she answered me anyway. "Bertrand is my co-star," she began, "in the theater, and sometimes in things we do for our organization. I care for him a great deal. He's very kind and sweet, and very reliable. I like his company. But I—I don't love him. I've always had other things on my mind." Her eyes met mine. 

I took an unnecessarily large sip of my root beer float. "Did you really?" I asked, because I wasn't quite sure what else to say. 

"I did," she said. "I do." 

I stood up and walked to the jukebox. I browsed through the song selection so I didn't think about how my heart was pounding in my chest. I selected one of the songs and looked at Beatrice, waiting for her reaction when the upbeat guitar started. 

Beatrice laughed. "That's sweet of you," she said. "I like this one too. Better than his cover of the other song."

"I think this one is my favorite of his songs," I said, sitting back down. "I like to think it's relevant."

"That's because you worry too much," Beatrice said, and she smiled so fondly at me. "I hope it's not _all_ relevant, though. I'd hate to think this is it for us and our relationship."

"I'd hate that too," I said. "Let's hope it isn't." 

"You know, I think we have some unfinished business, Mr. Snicket," Beatrice said, and her smile was impossibly grand under the lights of the diner.

"Do we?"

She laughed. "You," she continued, as she reached across the table and took my hands in hers, "are honestly one of a kind."

My heart skipped. 

Beatrice leaned forward, but I met her halfway, and nine years after I had done it, Beatrice and I kissed in the back of that diner.

-

A badly-written story sometimes involves characters coming to the height of their happiness, or to a somewhat satisfying end of their plot line, at a crucial moment that looks like the end of their narrative, only for the whole thing to continue and for their happiness to be suddenly stripped away from them in a contrived moment used only to maintain drama at the expense of the story.

This is, of course, assuming that the characters are supposed to end up happy or satisfied. Regretfully, very few of us end up happy, and even less of us are truly ever satisfied with what happens to us. 

So it was with a feeling of certain trepidation as to what else was to come that Beatrice and I found out Olaf wasn't at rehearsal when we arrived at the theater Friday afternoon. When Kit didn't show up either, my nervousness increased. My sister had still been following him, as far as I knew. I didn't like the thought that something could have happened that might involve her. 

"I know I said we should let someone else handle it now," Beatrice began, later that night when we had dinner, "and I did ask Ramona to check out that apartment Ernest was in, so I suppose all our bases are covered, but I'm genuinely concerned about why Olaf would've disappeared so suddenly. He's not one to miss something theatrical. Where do you think he is?" 

I thought about it. Although Olaf had been my first suspect, and I still suspected he'd some something, the evidence had pointed to Ernest. But it felt now like we'd missed something, something important, and I didn't like that feeling. I never have, and I never will. 

"I don't know," I said. "We can find Kit and ask her if she knows anything."

"Don't you think we do an awful lot of finding people and talking to them just to find other people?" Beatrice asked, smiling. "I think next time, we should get an assignment with a little less legwork." 

I liked it when she said things like _next time_. It felt like nothing could touch us if we thought that far ahead, if we thought about our lives together and where we'd be going from here. 

"Next time," I said, and it came out as a promise that settled between us. I didn't mind. I fully intended to keep my promises to Beatrice this time.

-

We went looking for Kit the next day after breakfast. Given that it was usually rather hard to locate my sister, Beatrice and I found her easily. She and Dewey Denouement were sitting outside a cafe, talking quietly and seriously with each other and sitting side by side, when Beatrice and I approached.

Dewey glanced at Beatrice and me with a certain nervousness, which I felt bad about, given that we'd technically arrested his brother yesterday, but he smiled a little bit all the same. Then he stood up, murmured something to Kit, and walked away quickly down the street. 

I kept my face carefully blank, although any expression I made would've been somewhat hypocritical, given that I was holding Beatrice's hand. Kit still frowned at me when we sat down across from her. 

"Don't give me that look," Kit said carefully.

"What look?" I asked.

Kit shook her head. "Fine," she said. "Look. I was asking Dewey about Ernest and he said that while Ernest's crossing to the other side of the schism didn't necessarily surprise him, and that Ernest's been hanging around Olaf for longer than I honestly want to think about, that Ernest was with _Dewey_ Sunday night."

It felt as if the world had suddenly shifted, and that everything was falling out from under me in a dizzying, horrifying way. 

Beatrice blinked quickly. "He was _what_?" 

"All three of them were at the library that night," Kit said, frowning down at the table. "They were reshelving books until about ten-thirty. Dewey said that neither Frank nor Ernest left his sight the whole time."

Something cold and hard was sinking in my chest. The gunshot that night had been fired at ten-thirty, I knew that for a fact. There was no way Dewey could be lying, not to Kit, not about his brothers. There was no question that Ernest had been the one to break into Beatrice's apartment, but if he had an alibi for Sunday night, then something was terribly wrong. 

"Then who?" Beatrice said. "Who—?"

All three of us looked at each other. I saw the barely-contained desperation on my sister's face. All this time, we'd been right. We just didn't want to believe it. 

"I still can't find him," Kit whispered. "And if he was responsible for what happened to Esmé, then he's crueler than I ever thought he'd be." 

"Then we need to find him," I said. "And we need to find him now."

"We'll split up," Kit said. She divided up the city between us, and was even kind enough to let Beatrice and I look together. Before we went our separate ways, her eyes found mine, and I didn't like the look on her face. My sister should never look so miserable. 

"What's going to happen if we can't find him?" she whispered.

It was then that I remembered the sugar bowl, still locked in Beatrice's apartment, and all the secrets it held. I thought about what would happen if Beatrice couldn't get those secrets out, if we couldn't find Olaf to stop him before he carried them out. I didn't like what I came up with. 

"We'll find him," I said. 

We didn't find him. 

The three of us scoured the city, but we still came up completely empty. The day wore on, and so did out patience as he looked for a man determined not to be found. 

"There has to be some way to draw him out," Kit said when we met back up at the cafe, running a hand through her hair. "We can't let him get away from us."

Beatrice's eyes widened. "Our play," she said quietly. "On Thursday. We'll change the date to Tuesday. He'd have to show up for that, there's no way he'd miss the actual performance."

"That could work," Kit said. "He does love an audience. But how do we let him know?"

"We'll send a telegram," I said, thinking fast. "To headquarters, the one that was compromised. If Olaf's gone over to the other side as much as we fear he has, then there's a good chance it'll get to him, even if he's not there. It's our only option." 

It probably wasn't. But it was the only thing we had going for us.

-

Monday, a telegram was delivered to Beatrice's apartment, with a postmark that had been smudged a great deal more than we wanted it to be, after a day spent in exhausting rehearsal. It was probably the shortest and most cryptic telegram either of us had ever seen, and in our line of work we had seen a regrettably good amount of short and cryptic telegrams.

I'LL BE THERE TOMORROW NIGHT 

O

Beatrice set the telegram down on her desk. "We've got him," she said.

-

Tuesday went by quicker than any of us thought it would. Beatrice and I spent the day going over what we would do with Olaf, where we would take him, who would be involved. We'd get through the play and handle him afterwards, take him to one of the headquarters we knew for certain was safe. We made sure Bertrand and Ramona were ready to do their parts. We made sure Kit was already at the theater, staking it out. We ate a late lunch and listened to Beatrice's records, and she whistled different tunes from them while eating crackers to see if I could identify them. I was horrible at it, and she told me as much.

"You're horrible at this," she laughed through her mouthful of crackers. "Tomorrow we're going to go through every single record I own until you know them all."

"Are you telling me I'm going to acquire a newfound appreciation for Tito Puente?"

"Are you telling me you don't already have one? That's practically illegal, Mr. Snicket." 

It was too peaceful, and neither of us wanted it to end. I told her as much. 

"I don't want this to end," I said, which was probably one of the most honestly romantic things I've ever said. 

It made Beatrice's face turn red, and she bit her lips around a smile and looked away. "We'll have all the time in the world," she said. 

We went to the theater. Beatrice disappeared to get ready, so I wandered the building, making sure everything and everyone was where they were supposed to be, wondering if Olaf had miraculously arrived early and on time for once. He hadn't. But we still had time. 

I spent some of it with Ramona in the meantime, as she was already ready and had been for a while. We sat at a table in her room and entertained ourselves the way we always had—by playing cards. 

"I only have one pen on me," I said, watching Ramona shuffle the cards.

She pouted. "Oh, fine. We'll play for your handkerchiefs instead." 

Our card games passed in companionable silence for some time, and Ramona made off with several of my handkerchiefs with a series of well-timed card hands. When she was shuffling the cards for another game, I thought of something. 

"Did you find anything in that apartment Ernest was in?" I asked.

Ramona frowned, her hands stilling around the cards. She set them down. "Well," she said, reaching into the bag she had hanging over the back of her chair, "I'm actually not sure." She pulled out a plastic bag with a small item inside. 

It was a scrap of a bandage, half of it stained a deep, imposing red. I took the bag from her and stared down at it. "Someone else was there," I said.

"And they were injured," Ramona said quietly. "Do you think it was Olaf?"

"It's a possibility," I admitted. "But I don't know." I had a feeling it wasn't Olaf, but I didn't know who else it could've been. 

"I don't like thinking about who else it could be, honestly."

"Neither do I."

Ramona sighed. "After tonight, everything should get cleared up, right?" She took back the bag and slid it away. "It'll all work out, and we can all go out for celebratory drinks afterward. Well, celebratory root beer floats." She smiled pleasantly and went back to shuffling the cards. "I think we have just enough time for one more game."

"I'm running out of handkerchiefs," I said, inspecting my pockets. 

"That's just too bad, Lemony Snicket!" 

By the end of the card game, I was, in fact, another handkerchief lighter. I hadn't regularly played cards in nine years, and I'd paid for it, but I didn't mind. 

Ramona sat and folded her purloined handkerchiefs neatly. "You've really got to up your game," she said. "Nine years and you haven't improved! I'll steal your heart away one of these days if you're not careful."

I laughed. "You'd have to take that up with Beatrice."

Ramona's whole face smiled at that, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "Go be cute somewhere else," she said, standing up. "I need to fix my hair before curtain." She shooed me out of her dressing room and shut the door when I was back in the hallway.

I took my time walking back to Beatrice's room. I couldn't help it. I was thinking about that bandage, about Ernest. I was thinking about who else could've been there. I thought about someone else, someone I hadn't considered before, and then I put them out of my mind. There were more pressing matters right now. We had to get Olaf. Then we could figure out what to consider next. 

Beatrice was still getting ready when I entered her dressing room. I leaned against the wall by the door and watched her zip up the back of her dress with steadier hands than I would've had. I'd already said something many, many times, but I thought I'd say it again. "Good luck tonight."

"Same to you," Beatrice smiled, straightening her dress. "Have you seen him yet?"

I shook my head. "He said he'd be here, and as much as I don't like taking him at his word, this is the kind of thing he wouldn't miss."

"Here's hoping," she said. Then she turned slightly, showing off the entirety of her dress, which was shiny and silver and framed her perfectly. "What do you think?" 

I walked over to her slowly. Despite my worries and doubts, everything was still here, including Beatrice. Especially Beatrice. "You look beautiful," I told her. "You really do." 

"Don't you dare mess up my makeup," Beatrice muttered, but she kissed me anyway, her arms curling around my shoulders, my hands at her waist. 

"Good luck," I said again when she stepped back. 

Beatrice leaned her hip against her dressing table and grinned at me, her eyes twinkling. She looked too exasperated and fond to say anything else, so I said it again, just to hear her laugh, loud and bright. 

I left her room and started to make my way back to the front of the theater when I heard a voice.

"Snicket?" 

I turned to see Bertrand standing in the hall behind me by an open door. "Bertrand," I said. I walked over to him. "What is it?" 

Bertrand looked at me, but he didn't seem angry or upset or anything that wouldn't bode well for either of us. Instead, he put a hand on my shoulder. "I wish you two happiness," he said with a genuine smile.

I gave him a smile of my own. "So do I. Good luck tonight, Bertrand." 

"Thanks, Snicket." 

We parted ways, and I returned to the lobby, which had accumulated a large number of theatergoers in my absence. After struggling through the crowd, I found my sister leaning against the far wall. 

"Have you seen him?" I asked when I reached her. 

"No," Kit said quietly, her eyes scanning the room. "Not yet." 

The crowd in the lobby lingered for a while longer. Kit and I stood at the edge and watched. I saw Hector, and then Olivia, and I saw Dewey, wearing a tie that was a little too loud for the theater but looked nice regardless. He waved at us before turning to talk to Josephine and Ike. Everyone else, all the regular patrons, were a blur. I wondered what it was like, to be able to go to the theater and not worry about codes or associates or whether or not something was going to work out. After tonight, maybe we'd be able to do that. 

It wasn't long before the lobby started to empty, everyone going into the theater, and soon it was just me and Kit, looking in opposite directions and thinking. We'd have to go into the theater soon, but neither of us moved. I had the feeling Kit was waiting to ask me something, the same thing she'd asked me on the phone that first day, and I couldn't avoid it this time. 

Kit sighed. "Hey," she said. "What really happened? You never told me. You just said it was fine." 

"There's not much else to tell," I said. "I went there. I didn't see her. I never do. But the headstone is still there. I looked at it for a long time." I didn't think I'd ever be able to erase it from my memory. Years from now, I'd probably still see the carved letters of _Armstrong Feint_ when I closed my eyes, and feel the same drop in my stomach when I remembered the casket buried beneath it was empty. 

"Lemony," my sister said, and it was the use of my name that made me look up at her. It had been years since I'd heard her say it. Kit looked sad and tired, but she smiled. "It's enough."

I looked at Kit and let her words sink in. I thought about Beatrice, and I thought about Armstrong Feint, and I thought about the fleeting memory of Ellington Feint's curved eyebrows, and for one, single second, I really believed my sister was right, or that she _could_ be right, or that _I_ could be right, whatever that even meant. I really believed it was all enough, everything we'd done, everything that had led us to this night. 

"Come on," I said, and I even smiled a little this time. "We should get inside."

-

Kit and I sat in the front row. She rolled and unrolled her program in her hands, her eyes fixed on the curtain. I looked around the room and marked the positions of our associates. Everyone was in place. I turned back. The lights went down.

The play began. 

It would be just like Olaf to keep us all in suspense, to wait until the last moment to make an unnecessarily grand entrance. I knew the play by heart now from having gone over it so many times, and I knew when his first appearance was. The minutes ticked by and finally, half an hour into the play, Ramona said her line and turned to where Olaf was supposed to enter from stage right. 

But he didn't. 

A sharp, cold tension settled in my stomach. Next to me, Kit clutched her program in still hands. 

Ramona shot a glance at Beatrice and said her line again. Again, nothing happened. No grand entrance, no bad acting. No Olaf. 

I saw Olivia take a step forward from her position by the left wall, and Dewey exchange a glance with Hector. The rest of the audience looked, for the time being, blissfully unaware that there was anything wrong. Each second that went by without Olaf's appearance felt like a hand tightening around my throat. Where was he? 

Something squeaked in the back of the theater. Kit and I turned, and in the small sliver of light created by the door opening, we saw the man standing by the back row, a familiar man in a particular tie we'd already seen earlier. I almost stopped breathing.

"That's impossible," Kit whispered. "He's already here, he's—" She started to look where we both knew Dewey was stationed in the corner, and then she stopped. "He wouldn't," she hissed. "Ernest _wouldn't_." 

I looked at Ernest a second longer before turning back to Kit. We hadn't counted on this, on Olaf not showing, on Ernest, of all people, being the one to arrive, when he was supposed to be safely out of the way. I felt that dizzying sensation like the world was falling out from under me again and swallowed hard. I could already hear it in my head, like I had when I was a child. _Wrong. Wrong. Wrong._ Each thought was a drop of horror into my stomach. "We've got to get Beatrice out of here," I said. "Before Ernest does anything." I looked back at the stage, my mind racing. How was I going to get Beatrice out of the theater? What could I do? What could I say? 

"I'm going to do something," was what I said. "Can you stay here and handle it?"

Kit nodded. "Yes." 

"I'll need your handcuffs."

She frowned, but she pulled out the handcuffs I knew she had stashed in the bottom of her handbag. My sister was always prepared. 

"I don't know what's going to happen."

"We rarely ever do," Kit said. 

I smiled. I got up, reminded myself to get scared later, and ran onstage. 

It is a generally accepted truth that life is often fairly absurd. I am sure that, for instance, I will once again attend or at least hear about a play in which people are convinced the antics of my associates and enemies are actually part of the play itself. Whether that means people are gullible, or that they just often see and hear the things they want to when when it goes against obvious facts, I don't know. 

I gave Beatrice a significant look before I strode towards her with as much determination and confidence as I could muster. "Beatrice," I said, "I arrest you for the murder of Esmé." I brandished the handcuffs for effect. 

I saw Bertrand pale in disbelief, the way Ramona's hands flew to her mouth, the surprise masked quickly by a firm resignation on Beatrice's face. 

She nodded at me. "Alright," she said. "Alright." 

"Magnificent!" I heard someone shout from the audience. "I didn't even see that one coming!"

"There's no one named Esmé even in this play!" Another exclaimed. "What a twist!" 

I tightened the handcuffs around Beatrice's wrists. It was the only thing I could think of to get her off the stage, and it seemed to be working. I led her to the side of the stage. "Well," I said, "that'll be all." I pulled the curtain closed. 

That, of all things, was what truly upset the audience. "Wait a moment!" One of them called, as the curtain slid together in front of us and sectioned my associates and I away from the audience. "I paid good money for this play!"

"But what happens after the arrest?" Someone else shouted. 

"Let's take this into the lobby," another voice said, one I recognized as my sister's. 

I unlocked the handcuffs and shoved them in my pocket. "We don't have much time, Beatrice." 

"Beatrice," Bertrand called out, he and Ramona rushing towards us, "what—"

"I'll tell you everything later!" Beatrice said. 

I took her hand and we started running, leaving behind the confused audience and our concerned friends. 

"What happened?" she asked, as we moved quickly through the back halls of the theater. "He didn't—"

"Kit and I didn't see Olaf anywhere," I said. I pulled her through a door and down a short flight of steps into another hallway. "But Ernest showed up. Something's gone wrong." 

Beatrice exhaled shakily. "We should've known," she said, "we should've _known_ —"

"We know now," I said. "We've got to get out of here. Our associates will handle things." 

When we were outside, the cold wind biting at our faces, I looked back just for a moment through the glass front of the theater to see my sister standing in the lobby, easily controlling the crowd that had gathered around her as they demanded answers. 

That was the last time I saw Kit.

-

Beatrice and I raced back to her apartment, taking the back streets to avoid being seen. As we ran, we heard the piercing whine of a fire engine not too far away, and we immediately stopped. We'd been trained to do that.

"That sounded close," Beatrice said, breathing hard. "But we don't—"

"We don't have time," I said. "They'll have to deal with it without us." 

We made it back to her apartment safely. Beatrice turned to me the minute we were inside. "What now?" she asked.

"Now," I said, "I'm going to find Olaf." I didn't know where he'd be, but I had a good idea about where to start. It was a place I should've checked much, much earlier. I'd checked everyone else's, after all, but it just hadn't occurred to me to check the most obvious place, and I tried not to feel too bad about it. 

Beatrice took a step towards me. "I'm coming with you," she said.

I almost did let her come with me. But I didn't. "No," I said. 

"It didn't work the last time you told me that," she said, frowning, "and it's not going to work now."

"Beatrice, _please_ ," I said. "Please, don't risk it this time. Just stay here, don't go anywhere, don't open the door for anyone. It'll be safer than you out there." Although her apartment hadn't been safe before, and realistically, nowhere was safe, at least it was somewhere no one would find her, at least for a little bit. It certainly wouldn't take me that long to find Olaf, if he was as nearby as I thought he was and as he said he'd be. I didn't know what would happen when I caught up with Olaf, and it was better if Beatrice wasn't there, even if I wanted her to be. I wasn't going to let anything happen to her this time around, regardless of what I had to do to ensure that. 

Beatrice looked like she wanted to argue. It was a look she wore often, but this time, she closed her eyes and sighed. "Alright," she said. "Alright. I'll stay here. But you'll be back," she said, opening her eyes. It was not a question. 

I smiled. "I'll be back." I kissed her, and I meant for it to be brief, but Beatrice grabbed my shoulders and held on. 

She stepped back a few moments later. "You'll be back," she said, and she let me go.

-

Breaking into someone's apartment is not exactly legal or ethical, but it can be incredibly beneficial. There are things you can learn about a person only from careful examination of their belongings. These are the things they do not tell people, and perhaps the things they don't even tell themselves. It was for these reasons that I went to pick the lock on Olaf's apartment. If he was there, then that would be that. If he wasn't, then I could at least figure out where to find him.

Olaf's apartment wasn't so much an apartment as it was the tiniest room with the smallest door on the topmost floor of the apartment building two streets over from Beatrice's. I was in luck that the door was so beaten and the lock so rusted, so I didn't have to worry about trying to pick it open. All it took was a few meetings between my shoulder and the door jamb. 

I stepped into the apartment and lit a match from my pocket. The single window on the far wall was bolted shut, and the room had a musty, shadowy feel. Dirty and patched clothes were strewn haphazardly about the sagging couch and chairs that had been jammed into the small space—if you stepped over them delicately, it looked like you would reach the kitchen, which from what I could see was the only thing untouched in the apartment. I looked past the coffee table, piled high with newspapers and drama magazines and ashtrays and his incomplete tea set, until my eyes fell upon the desk situated between a chair and another door. The mirror sitting atop it was the only clean thing in the apartment. Between the stage makeup and the empty wine bottles were a few photographs. One of them was face-down on the desk, and I picked it up. 

The glass was cracked slightly, but the picture inside was still perfectly clear. I looked down at my sister's face. There are very few pictures of my siblings and me, but I believe there are more pictures of Kit than any of Jacques or me, mostly because Olaf once went through a period of photographing her like he was either trying to keep track of her or never forget her, much to my concern. Something twisted inside me at the thought that even after everything, Olaf kept her picture, even if he had hidden it. 

I set it back down. I lit another match. 

The second frame was empty. I wondered briefly what could have been inside, what Olaf had felt was either so unimportant he threw away or perhaps so important he took it with him, but then I saw the third photograph. It didn't have a frame. It was a photo of Esmé, her face close to the camera, smiling her wicked smile. Beside it was a folded piece of paper, slightly crumpled. I unfolded it. I brought the match closer and found Esmé's quick handwriting scrawled across the page.

_I still can't believe Beatrice stole it! Can you believe her? All that planning we did, and she just waltzes in and takes it right out from under me! I'm going to give her a piece of my mind, I swear. I'm going to make her regret she ever underestimated me. I'm going to wipe that smile off her pretty little face tonight._

_Call me when you get back in, darling, and we'll celebrate._

A chill ran down my spine. Olaf hadn't initially known, then, that Esmé had been to Beatrice's apartment, because Esmé hadn't been able to get ahold of him. But now he knew Beatrice was alive, and he knew what had happened to Esmé, and all this time he'd been waiting for just the right moment, just the right dramatic moment where he could get Beatrice alone and finish the job Esmé had started. 

I dropped the letter back onto the desk and ran out of the apartment.

-

I took the steps up to Beatrice's apartment two at a time, my heart pounding in my chest. I told Beatrice to stay there because she'd be safe, she'd be alright, and I was still wrong. I was wrong _again_ , and if I had to lose one more person to my already extensive list of mistakes, I didn't know if I could take it. I almost went to look for Hector for backup before I remembered he wasn't here anymore. He was still at the theater. It was down to just the three of us, then.

I reached Beatrice's apartment and unlocked the door, flinging it open. "Beatrice?" I called, looking around. " _Beatrice?"_

It was a scene I never wanted to see. 

Beatrice stood by the piano, her gun held steady in her hand and pointed straight at Olaf, who almost lounged as he stood by the couch, his own gun fixed on her. I watched them, breathless and afraid. 

Olaf noticed me first. "Why, Lemony Snicket!" he exclaimed, and he pointed his gun at me now. "I should have known you would've shown your face at some point tonight." 

"You're just in time, Mr. Snicket," Beatrice said quietly, casting me a quick glance. "Olaf was just about to tell me everything." 

Olaf smiled wide. "Well, I've never denied an audience the pleasure of watching me do what I do best," he said, and he schooled his features into a tortured look that seemed strange and out of place on his face. "I did it, officers," he said, in a high, mocking voice, like this was just another play, like we were still in school, like he could still get out of it if he wanted to. "It was me! It was all me! Take me away so I can repent for my deeds against society!" Then he dropped the expression and grinned that horrible grin of his. "Is that how you thought this would go, Beatrice?" he hissed at her. "Is that what you wanted?"

Beatrice's frown deepened, but she didn't say anything. I saw her hand move slightly around her gun, still pointed at Olaf.

"But anyway, I _was_ here that night," Olaf said, that grin still on his face, but it was harder now, scornful. "And I shot Esmé. Of course, I didn't know it was Esmé at the time. I don't go around shooting my _friends_ , thank you very much." He put an amount of emphasis on _friends_ that made me shiver. "Thanks to some quick thinking from Ernest and my associate across the hall—" I thought of the one tenant who'd been able to give me the time of the gunshot, the one who'd said _a gunshot's not unusual around here_. "—they were able to get Esmé to a safe place to recover. Which she's been doing with no small amount of complaining, I'll have you know. 

"I'll admit," he continued, fixing his dark eyes on Beatrice, "that you almost pulled one over on me, Beatrice, by being alive. But that doesn't matter now. Esmé is alive, and she and I are going to make it out of this city alive. And if you give me the sugar bowl, I'll be the nice, compromising man I am at heart, and I'll consider letting both of you walk out of this relatively alive. A gunshot isn't _too_ hard to recover from. That's only fair, I think. And that's providing I don't miss." 

Olaf fired. The bullet passed right through the space between Beatrice and I, striking the door behind me and staying there. He made the point that with the proper lighting, he was perfectly capable of killing both of us when he wanted to. He was not going to miss. 

I remembered the bandage Ramona had found, the closed door in the apartment Ernest was in, then the inexplicably small patch of blood that had been on Beatrice's carpet before, and it dawned on me that no one had ever mentioned the body, what had happened to it or where it'd been taken. It was because very few people had seen it, and the ones who had really seen it had dealt with it before anyone else could. 

We hadn't had the time to notice it wasn't Beatrice. I cursed myself for not following up on that, for getting too wrapped up in too much else to think of the most obvious thing, for forgetting to ask the simplest question that even _Olaf_ had asked—where was Esmé? And we'd paid for it. 

"And maybe I wouldn't even stop there," Olaf said, almost casually. "You two aren't my only problems, although you're probably the most troublesome. I'll just go through and kill every _volunteer_ , like your precious duchess, your _dear_ sister, even Bertrand, so none of you ever get in my way again. I didn't say everything on the sugar bowl. I'm not _that_ stupid. And I think you'll understand tonight that I'm capable of much worse things."

"Olaf," Beatrice said, her voice surprisingly calm for someone who had just been threatened multiple times, "I told you before, there's still a chance, you can still come back to our side! You did so much good work before, there's no reason to throw it all away! If you come with us, we can protect you, we can all use the sugar bowl for—" 

Olaf actually laughed, his loud, wheezing laugh. "Oh, Beatrice! You always get it wrong, don't you? Just like Snicket over there. You're in no place to make a kind of bargain like that. You weren't before, and you aren't now!"

Beatrice swallowed. Her eyes hardened, all their softness falling away. She looked cold and determined, even with the fear I could see making her shoulders tremble. I knew that look. "I'll pull this trigger if you don't," she said, her voice low. 

Olaf grinned at her. "I don't think you have the guts," he said, starting to laugh again. "You'd never do it."

"I'd rather not, honestly," Beatrice said. "But I will if I have to. Think about your associates, Olaf, think about Kit—"

The mirth vanished from Olaf's face in an instant, replaced with a vicious fury. He fired again, and this time it just barely missed Beatrice's shoulder. 

"I'm not playing around anymore, Beatrice," Olaf whispered. "I told you that before. I'll do it. Give me the sugar bowl or I'll kill you where you stand." 

Beatrice took a small step forward. 

I didn't dare say anything out loud. There were things I wanted to say, a million things, probably, but I couldn't get any of them out. 

"I want to give you one more chance," Beatrice said. "Please." 

Olaf shook his head slowly, a leer pulling across his face. It was the same twisted look he'd given me when he goaded me before. I saw his hand tighten on his gun, and then I had a horrifying feeling about what was going to happen the second before it did. 

It happened in an instant. Beatrice pulled the trigger, and the shot rang out, and the bullet went through Olaf's left shoulder. There was a moment of silence where he stared at Beatrice, white-faced and wide-eyed, before his knees hit the floor, his right hand scrambling over the bullet hole that was dripping blood down his shirt. He inhaled, a rough, rasping noise that caught at the end. Then he fell forward, and all the breath fell out of him too. 

Beatrice lowered her arm. She took in a long, deep breath and then turned around and looked at me, her face still set. 

She was right. There was a point at which you could talk and another at which you had to act. I had done that with Hangfire. She had done that with Olaf. This was what our lives were. 

It was what my life was, but I didn't want it to be Beatrice's. 

I stepped in front of Beatrice and took the gun from her hand. "You weren't here tonight," I told her. "You and I lost track of each other once we left the theater. Olaf and I were here alone. You came back in an hour and found him." 

I didn't know if it was the right thing to do, or the wrong thing to do, or if that was even going to matter in the long run. But I figured it might be what I had to do. 

I said before that people do difficult things for more or less noble reasons, but it wasn't as clear as that. People do things—not noble or wicked things, just things—for reasons. It probably didn't matter which side we were on, whether or not what we did was right, or wrong, or too much, or not enough. Sometimes it was just what you had to do. Maybe it wasn't what you wanted to do. But it was what you had to do. We all had our parts to play, and these had to be ours. 

" _No_ ," Beatrice said firmly. "This— _I_ did this—you can't, I'm not going to let you—"

"I'm not going to let you become a murderer," I said. 

"You couldn't let Hangfire go free," Beatrice reminded me, "and I couldn't let Olaf go free. I had to, and I don't regret it—"

"You don't now," I said, "but you're going to wake up one day, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and suddenly realize you do." 

"I don't need you to protect me," Beatrice said desperately, "I don't want you to protect me, I just want—I just want you, here, with me, doing what we can, and I don't care where that takes me, just as long as it's with you, and—" 

I put the gun in my pocket and took her face in my hands, her skin smooth against my shaking fingertips. "I'm not going to let what happened to me happen to you," I said, "and nothing is going to change that." 

"You'll have to go away," Beatrice whispered. 

"I will," I said, and I wanted to ask her to wait for me, or to come with me, to run away where nothing could touch us, where we could go and figure out what everything really means, but I couldn't ask that of her. I loved Beatrice more than anything, but I couldn't. I stared at her and took in everything—her deep brown eyes, the pieces of hair that curled by her chin, the way she looked at me with all the love I ever wanted. Take a good look, I told myself, because this is all you're going to get. I started to take a step back. "Maybe it's for the best," I said instead. 

"Wait," Beatrice said, and she pulled away first and ran to her bedroom. I saw her fumble with the drawer in the bedside table and pull out the sugar bowl and bring it over to me. "Take it."

I frowned. "No, you—"

"Take it," she insisted, pushing the sugar bowl into my hands. "Hide it for me. We'll need it later."

"No one else is going to know what happened," I said. 

"Not until you come back. And you _are_ coming back, you're going to meet me at our diner in a month when this is all over, after I've handled Esmé, and we're going to fix _everything_. And in the meantime, I'll know the truth," Beatrice said fiercely, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine. "I'll know."

I put the sugar bowl in my other pocket and took her hands in mine. I wish you did, I thought. I wish you could. I wish you could know every truth, every mistake, everything I've tried and failed to do, everything I will go on to try and do.

I wish you understood why I couldn't, why I wouldn't meet you at the diner in a month, why this couldn't happen. Because you and I, Beatrice, we wouldn't work out, not in the end. I will wish, on long, dark, cold nights, where the only thing keeping me warm is the memory of your smile, that we did work out, but we will not.

"You'll know," I said, and if she heard the fear in my voice she didn't comment on it. I leaned forward, very slowly, and kissed her on the cheek.

Beatrice's mouth trembled. "You're one of a kind, Mr. Snicket," she whispered. 

I tried to smile. "Good-bye, Beatrice."

-

I made sure that Beatrice slipped unseen out the back alley before I exited the building by the front entrance. It was past midnight now. I walked quickly through the streets, doing my best to avoid the streetlamps, the sugar bowl clunking occasionally in my pocket. I could hear the sirens again, this time a little fainter, and I wondered vaguely where they were. When I reached the end of the street, I heard a familiar rustle, and then an equally familiar cough. I paused, looked at the nearby bushes, and waited.

A few moments later, Jacques Snicket stepped into the street. My brother and I looked at each other for a long time. It felt like too many years since I had seen Jacques, since I could look him in the eye. But he didn't look disappointed, or upset, or anything I'd imagined he'd be when we finally caught up with each other. Instead, he looked as tired as I felt, just like Kit always did.

I pulled out the sugar bowl. "I need you to hide this," I told Jacques, pressing the bowl into his hands. "And I mean _hide it."_

Jacques looked startled for a moment, and then he looked down at the sugar bowl and his expression turned to one of resignation. "I shouldn't," he said.

This was no time to get angry at Jacques, so I tried not to. "Please," I said. 

Jacques sighed. "Alright," he said, and he slid it into his pocket. "What's on it?"

"Information about Olaf and Esmé we might need later. I don't know what's going to happen until then, so we need to hide it." 

He looked at me. "I heard the gunshot." 

"Olaf's dead," I said quickly. "I did it."

Jacques smiled a little. "I don't think you did."

It was nice that he still had such faith in me, even if I'd done it before and was clearly capable of doing it again, or of at least taking the blame for it. 

"I have to leave," I said. 

"I can get you out on the Prospero in the morning."

"No." I shook my head. "No one from V.F.D. can know where I'm going. I—" I bit my lip. "I don't know when I'll be back," I said, and it was at this point that my voice broke. I turned away from Jacques, but it is very hard to hide things from your siblings, and I know he saw my shoulders start to shake. 

Jacques hugged me. I hugged him back. When we let go, he looked me square in the face. "It'll all work out," he said. 

No it won't, I wanted to say. I'm just being a coward, because I would rather run to protect everyone than do it for real, than own up to my mistakes, I wanted to say. I hope we see each other again, I wanted to say. I didn't say any of it, and I never saw my brother again. 

I started walking.

-

It wasn't long until I found myself at the phone booth again, the one where Kit had first told me about Beatrice. That felt like a lifetime ago.

I dialed a phone number. Even though it was late, it only rang twice before someone picked up. _"Bellerophon Taxi Service and Mobile Library."_

"I'm sorry," I said. "I need a favor." 

I heard the smile in his voice. _"Anything, Snicket,_ " Pip said. 

"I need you to hide me."

-

The month that followed was not the best for our organization. During the play, the fire-starting side had burned down the city's headquarters, and some of the associates in there at the time did not survive. In the scuffle that ensued, Ernest was able to successfully get Esmé out of the city and to a location where she could continue to recover from Olaf's gunshot and carry out her nefarious plans from afar. Because of this, Beatrice was not able to handle Esmé as she had planned. Her last hope for saving the situation was the sugar bowl.

The sugar bowl containing the information against Olaf and Esmé that I'd given to Jacques to keep safe until we needed it was lost that night, when Jacques went back to headquarters as it burned to see what he could do. My brother was unable to tell Beatrice what had happened to the sugar bowl, and Beatrice still believed that I had it. 

Between the theater, the fire, Olaf's death, the loss of the sugar bowl, Esmé's assumed death and actual disappearance, and my disappearance, which had been preceded by a string of actions that were going to be hard to justify without the sugar bowl, no one could really be sure what happened that night. Even Beatrice found she wasn't sure, and she had been there in person. Everything that happened afterward made it too unclear, and when I didn't show up at the diner a month later to discuss the contents of the sugar bowl, which no one could even find anymore, she had to assume the worst. I let her. 

The fire-starting side, assuming I had already caused them enough trouble, even though I think the trouble I have caused spreads to everyone, even beyond the schism divides, took the opportunity to covertly carry out the crimes mentioned in the sugar bowl and blame me for them. 

I let them do it. I couldn't do anything to stop them anyway, without the sugar bowl. And the more reasons I had to stay hidden, to prevent myself from interfering in the lives of people better off without me, the better. I let it ruin my relationships with everyone, my siblings, my friends, even with the Bellerophons, even after they'd found a place for me to hide, because I didn't want them involved anymore. 

I think it goes without saying, then, that I never saw Beatrice again.

-

It took me longer than I wanted to find out what became of Esmé. By the time I'd found her again and had figured out what else she had planned in the intervening years, it was too late. On late nights, I wonder if I could have done more to stop her, to stop the newspaper headline that officially pronounced Beatrice Baudelaire dead. I'm still not sure. I'll probably never be sure. And if I couldn't stop what came afterward, then the least I could do was write it down.

There was a city, and there was a fire, and there were three children.

I went to work again.

**Author's Note:**

> we did it cats!!!! we made it!!! we climbed this whole mountain!!!! 
> 
> so this fanfic is based off a 1944 noir movie called [_Laura_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_\(1944_film\)). I changed some things around in order to fit the asoue-verse, but the premise is the same -- detective falls in love with seemingly dead woman -- which I always thought was a weird and interesting concept. so definitely check the movie out!! it's got YOUNG VINCENT PRICE in it and it WAS on netflix until they made it dvd-only. but it's super super super worth it to watch. please watch this movie. 
> 
> by the way, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yZycTxjoIQ) is the song that beatrice plays in the diner, and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPkL7cw7J7Q) is the song lemony plays.
> 
> do you too have sad feelings about lemony snicket, and perhaps care about the frankly outrageous amount of planning i've done over the past year for this ride of a fanfic? come visit me on my [tumblr](http://whoslaurapalmer.tumblr.com)!!


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